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THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 


THE  FRENCH 
RENASCENCE 


BY 


CHARLES  SAROLEA 

Belgian  Consul  in  Edinburgh 

LL.D.  (Montreal),  DJur.  (Cleveland), 

D.Litt  (Likge),  D.Ph,  (Brussels). 


JAMES   POTT  &  CO. 
214-220    EAST    23RD    STREET,    NEW    YORK 


Firtt  published  in  1916. 


CONTENTS 


VC-3(> 

53!r 


PAGE 

Intkoduction 9 

Montaigne               37 

Montaigne  and  Nietzsche 49 

Pascal's  "  Thoughts  "             59 

Pascal  and  Newman               73 

Madame  de  Maintenon 89 

Liselotte  :    A  German  Princess  at  the  Court  op 

Louis  XIV       . Ill 

Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle  on  the  French 

Huguenots 137 

Rousseau's  "  ^mile  " 147 

Marie  Antoinette  Bepore  the    Revolution          .  165 

Mirabeau       ........  167 

Robespierre 179 

The  Real  Napoleon      ...          ...  191 

Napoleon  as  a  Socialist 205 

Balzac 225 

Gust  AVE  Flaubert 239 

Maurice  Maeterlinck 249 

The  Condemnation  of  Maeterlinck       .         .         .  261 

Professor  Bergson 271 

Mons.  Poincar£ 285 

The  New  France 293 


3G7506 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAOX 

Michel  Eyqubm,  Seigneur  de  Montaigne      .         .  41 

Chateau  op  Montaigne 46 

Jean  Jacques  Rousseau 149 

Honoe£  Gabriel  Riqueti  Mirabeau       .         .         .  173 

HonorA  de  Balzac 231 

Gustavb  Flaubert 243 

Maurice  Maeterlinck             .....  266 

Henri  Bergson 279 

Raymond  PoincarA 289 


INTRODUCTION 


In  the  Year  of  Terror,  1792,  when  the  hosts 
of  Prussia  and  Austria,  taking  advantage  of 
the  distress  of  their  neighbours,  invaded  a  dis- 
tracted country,  and  initiated  a  European  War 
which  was  to  last  a  quarter  of  a  century  ;  when 
France,  bankrupt,  without  an  army,  and  in 
the  grip  of  anarchy,  seemed  threatened  with 
total  ruin,  the  greatest  of  German  poets,  who 
had  accompanied  the  Teutonic  legions  on  their 
triumphant  march  through  Gaul,  wrote  down 
in  his  notebook,  on  the  eve  of  the  Battle  of 
Valmy,  the  following  fateful  words  :  *'  On  this 
day  a  new  era  has  begun  in  the  history  of  the 
World/' 

There  is  no  Goethe  amongst  the  German 
legions  to-day  ;  there  is  no  room  for  a  Goethe 
in  a  Prussianized  Germany.  But  it  requires 
no  German  prophet  to  confidently  foretell  that, 
as  on  the  eve  of  Valmy,  so  on  the  morrow  of  the 
Battle  of  the  Marne,  a  new  era  has  dawned  for 
humanity,  and  that  amidst  the  conflict  of  two 
million  soldiers,  amidst  the  thunder  of  thousands 


10.     .MB  ':I?IIENCH   EENASCENCE 

of  giant  howitzers,  a  new  Europe  is  being  born 
in  suffering  and  sorrow.  The  fate  of  Western 
civilization  is  still  trembling  in  the  balance. 
In  1914  the  Germans  tried  to  force  a  decision 
in  the  plains  of  Champagne  and  they  failed .. 
They  are  still  trying  to  force  a  decision  in  the 
plains  of  Kussia  in  1915,  and  they  have  not 
succeeded.  They  may  to-morrow  attempt  to 
force  a  decision  before  the  walls  of  Constantinople. 
Their  Leviathan  airships  may  continue  to 
murder  babies  and  women,  their  submarines^ 
may  continue  to  sink  Lusitanias  and  ArahicSy 
they  may  continue  to  spread  terror  in  every 
land,  and  to  sow  mines  in  every  sea,  but  in  the 
battlefields  of  the  Marne  the  German  coalition 
received  a  blow  from  which  it  cannot  recover. 

But  when  the  final  victory  comes,  it  will 
not  merely  seal  the  doom  of  the  Pan-Germanic 
world-power,  it  will  not  merely  recast  the  geo- 
graphical map  of  Europe,  it  will  not  merely 
mean  the  collapse  of  the  two  central  Empires, 
it  will  not  merely  deliver  the  world  from  the 
yoke  of  the  "  unspeakable  Turk,'"  it  will  not 
merely  bring  transference  of  military  and 
political  power;  it  will  also  bring  a  readjust- 
ment and  trans  valuation  of  all  our  moral 
and  spiritual  values.  ''  Die  Weltgeschichte  ist 
das   Weltgericht,''   said   Schiller.     "Das   Welt- 


INTRODUCTION  11 

gericht/'  the  World  Tribunal,  has  already  pro- 
nounced its  verdict.  Even  as  adversity  testa 
the  moral  fibre  of  an  individual,  even  as  disaster 
tests  the  strength  and  weakness  of  our  bodily 
constitution,  so  this  war  has  tested  the  strength 
and  weakness  of  the  body  politic  of  every 
European  nation.  It  has  dispelled  many  an 
illusion.  It  has  exploded  many  a  theory.  It 
has  compelled  us  to  revise  many  a  judgment. 
It  has  revealed  to  us  why  our  enemies  were 
predestined  to  lose ;  why  France,  Great  Britain 
and  Russia  were  predestined  to  win. 


II 


Posterity  will  not  cease  to  wonder  why  the 
German  people  staked  a  glorious  present  and 
an  even  more  glorious  future  on  the  chances 
of  a  mad  and  criminal  venture.  They  will 
compare  the  action  of  the  German  Government 
to  that  of  a  millionaire  who  would  gamble  away 
a  magnificent  fortune,  accummulated  by  the 
labours  of  generations,  in  the  Green  Rooms  of 
Monte  Carlo. 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  war  the  German 
Empire  stood  at  the  zenith  of  its  power.  The 
Empire  of  the  Hohenzollern  seemed  to   have 


12        THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

revived  the  glories  of  the  Hohenstaufen.  In 
the  past  centuries,  Europe  had  challenged  the 
World-Empire  of  Philip  of  Spain,  of  Louis  XIV, 
and  of  Napoleon.  But  it  seemed  as  if  European 
nations  in  their  very  desire  to  avoid  a  world- 
conflict,  no  longer  dared  to  challenge  the  German 
world-power,  and  preferred  to  submit  to  the 
megalomania  of  the  Teuton  rather  than  to 
plunge  the  peace-loving  democracies  into  the 
horrors  of  Armageddon.  Germany  seemed  to 
incarnate  an  implacable  Destiny.  Let  a  servile 
German  Chancellor  deliver  an  equivocal  speech 
to  a  more  servile  Reichstag,  and  suddenly,  all 
over  Europe,  the  political  skies  were  overcast. 
Let  the  Kaiser,  in  his  restless  wanderings, 
suddenly  appear  at  Tangier,  in  Jerusalem,  in 
Heligoland,  in  Norway,  in  the  glittering  armour 
of  Lohengrin,  and  let  him  but  rattle  his  Imperial 
Sword,  and  all  the  nations  listened  in  a  hush 
of  anxious  expectation. 

And  the  commercial  power  of  Germany  had  kept 
pace  with  the  growth  of  her  military  power  and 
political  prestige.  Through  unremitting  labour, 
through  ingenious  self-advertising,  through  iron 
discipline,  through  marvellous  organization, 
through  a  mobilization  of  her  productive  forces, 
through  a  clever  imitation  of  her  rivals,  through 
unscrupulous  methods  of  underselling,  by  threat 


INTRODUCTION  13 

and  blackmail,  by  craft  and  by  graft,  and  last, 
but  not  least,  owing  to  the  generous  free-trade 
policy  of  the  British  people — the  Commerce  and 
Industry  of  Germany  were  gradually  ousting  her 
rivals  from  every  world  market,  and  German 
argosies,  sailing  under  the  Black  Eagle,  the 
sinister  bird  of  prey,  carried  German  enterprise 
to  the  Chinese  Seas  and  to  the  upper  reaches  of 
the  Amazon. 

Nothing  succeeds  like  success.  Nowhere  had 
German  political  and  commercial  triumphs  left 
a  deeper  impression  than  in  Great  Britain. 
German  megalomaniacs  are  still  indignantly 
reproaching  the  British  people,  supposed  to  be 
animated  with  base  envy,  for  not  doing  justice 
to  the  magnificent  efforts  of  their  rivals.  But 
future  historians  will  certainly  not  blame  Great 
Britain  for  depreciating  German  achievements. 
Rather  will  they  blame  Great  Britain  for  unduly 
over-rating  them,  rather  will  they  reprove  her 
for  her  generous  and  blind  appreciation. 

For  not  only  did  British  public  opinion  give 
Germany  credit  for  her  achievements  in  the 
province  of  Trade  and  Industry,  which  were 
real.  PubHc  opinion  also  extended  its  admira- 
tion to  intellectual  and  spiritual  achievements, 
which  were  non-existent.  The  trade  mark 
"  Made  in  Germany  "  had  long  ceased  to  be  a 


14      THE   FEENCH    RENASCENCE 

badge  of  inferiority.  In  vain  would  dispassionate 
observers  point  out  that  there  was  no  relation 
whatsoever  between  the  military  power  of 
Germany  and  her  spiritual  and  moral  power, 
that  a  profound  moral  deterioration  had  set  in, 
that  Berlin  was  the  most  depraved  capital  of 
the  Continent,  that  the  German  genius  had 
ceased  to  be  creative,  that  for  the  last  generation 
German  Art  and  German  Literature  had  not 
added  one  single  masterpiece  to  the  inheritance 
of  mankind.  British  public  opinion  was  blind 
to  the  moral  decline  of  the  German  people. 
Prejudice  and  the  worship  of  material  success 
were  stronger  than  facts.  Everything  German 
was  the  fashion.  Only  German  specialists 
oould  cure  patients  of  deadly  diseases,  and  only 
the  bracing  air  and  the  miraculous  waters  of 
German  Health  Resorts  had  a  curative  virtue. 
The  only  music  which  found  favour  was  the 
sensuous  music  of  Wagner  and  the  morbid  music 
of  Strauss.  The  only  research,  the  only 
philosophy  which  commanded  respect  were 
German.  Even  estimable  mediocrities  like 
Eucken  were  proclaimed  great  original  thinkers. 
The  only  seats  of  learning,  where  the  British 
scholar  could  receive  the  consecration  of  his 
studies,  were  German  Universities,  and  every 
theological  faculty  in  the  British  Empire,  from 


7 


INTRODUCTION  16 

Edinburgh  to  Toronto,  seemed  to  share  Lord 
Haldane's  belief  that  "  Germany  was  the  only 
spiritual  home  ''  for  a  true  Briton.  It  was  not 
only  Kings  who  were  made  in  Germany,  it  was 
not  only  German  royalties  which  occupied 
every  throne  of  Europe,  God  Almighty  Himself 
was  made  in  Germany.  Our  progressive  age 
refused  to  believe  in  the  infallibility  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  in  the  religious  experiences  and 
traditions  of  two  thousand  years.  But  the 
Protestant  divines  believed  all  the  more  con- 
fidently in  the  infallibility  of  Professor  von 
Harnack,  Wirklicher  Geheimrath  and  Spiritual 
Adviser  of  the  Kaiser.  German  Higher  Critics 
decided  on  their  own  authority,  and  on  the 
authority  of  the  Kaiser,  which  were  the  words 
of  Christ  which  had  to  be  accepted,  and  which 
were  the  words  of  Christ  which  ought  to  be 
rejected.  And  a  considerable  section  of  the 
German  Higher  Critics  did  not  only  reject  the 
words  of  Christ,  they  did  reject  His  very  exis- 
tence. The  German  Professor  Drews,  following 
the  lead  given  by  Strauss,  fifty  years  ago,  pro- 
claimed that  Christ  was  a  myth,  and  the 
disciples  of  Nietzsche,  of  him  who  claimed  to  be 
the  new  Anti-Christ,  declared  that  Zarathustra 
had  ousted  the  Galilean. 


16         THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

III 

Together  with  the  tendency  to  glorify  every- 
thing German,  there  existed  a  corresponding 
tendency  to  depreciate  everything  French.  The 
Anti-French  movement  may  be  said  to  have 
begun  with  the  political  reaction  of  Burke,  and 
the  Gallophobia  of  de  Quincey  and  Coleridge. 
It  developed  into  the  Germanomania  of  Kingsley 
and  Carlyle.  It  found  its  most  striking  ex- 
pression in  that  extraordinary  travesty  of  history, 
Carlyle's  caricature  of  Frederick  the  Great.  It 
culminated  in  that  odious  letter  to  The  Times  in 
October,  1870,  when  the  oracle  of  Craigen- 
puddock  pronounced  an  inexorable  vcb  victis 
against  the  vanquished  of  Sedan. 

After  1870  a  belief  in  the  superiority  of  the 
German  race,  and  in  the  inferiority  of  the  French 
race,  acquired  almost  the  force  of  a  dogma.  It 
was  assumed  that  the  French  were  a  decaying 
nation ;  that,  with  all  their  brilliant  gifts,  they 
were  incorrigibly  frivolous  and  incurably  im- 
moral. Critics  would  still  ironically  concede  to 
the  French  a  certain  superiority  in  the  arts  of 
cooking  and  dancing  and  fashion,  in  the  lighter 
graces  of  style.  As  a  moral  and  intellectual 
power  the  French  people  had  ceased  to  count. 
But  the  anti-French  prejudices  which  gained 


INTRODUCTION  17 

strength  in  Great  Britain  after  1870  were  not 
merely  the  outcome  of  German  victories,  and  of 
a  materialistic  belief  in  the  finality  of  success. 
It  was  in  reality  a  very  old  British  tradition. 
We  find  traces  of  this  old  British  tradition  even 
in  the  Olympian  mind  of  Shakespeare — in  the 
odious  caricature  of  Joan  of  Arc,  and  in  that 
characteristic  passage  of  "  Hamlet ''  where  the 
frivolous  young  men  are  sent  to  Paris  and  the 
serious  young  men,  including  Hamlet  himself, 
are  sent  to  German  Universities. 

And  that  anti-French  tradition  was  not  only 
a  deeply-rooted  national  prejudice  against  the 
hereditary  enemy,  it  was  even  more  a  survival 
of  the  old  Protestant  and  Puritan  sentiment. 
It  is  true  that  the  French  people  had  produced 
the  greatest  of  Protestant  reformers,  Calvin. 
It  is  true  that  the  French  Huguenots  had 
suffered  more  heroically  for  their  faith  than  the 
Protestants  of  any  other  nation,  and  that 
Cardinal  Richelieu  had  been  supporting  the  Pro- 
testant cause  when  even  the  Protestant  Prussian 
Elector  had  deserted  Gustavus  Adolphus.  Still 
the  British  people  felt  that  the  French  nation 
always  remained  Catholic  at  heart,  and  that 
there  exists  somehow  an  incompatibility  between 
the  Protestant  religion  and  the  French  national 
character.     The  French  spirit,  always    aiming 


18        THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

at  universal  truth,  refuses  to  accept  an  ex- 
clusively national  religion.  French  logic  refuses 
to  accord  to  a  Book  interpreted  by  private 
judgment  an  infallibility  which  was  denied  to 
the  collective  experiences  and  to  the  religious 
tradition  of  two  thousand  years.  French  idealism 
rejected  the  Protestant  confusion  of  temporal 
and  spiritual  power.  The  French  artistic  sense 
was  repelled  by  the  iconoclasm  of  the  Puritan 
reformers.  French  Protestantism  might  survive 
as  a  political  party,  but  as  a  spiritual  influence 
it  has  long  been  a  vanishing  quantity,  and  it 
only  represented  an  insignificant  minority  in  the 
nation. 

There  lay  the  secret  to  the  subconscious 
antipathy  of  the  British  Nonconformists  against 
France.  Hence  the  conviction  that  France  was 
doomed  to  be  ever  distracted  between  super- 
stition and  atheism.  Hence  the  systematic 
attempt  to  magnify  every  failing  of  the  French 
character,  to  exaggerate  every  political  disorder. 

English  critics  would  point  to  the  regular  and 
progressive  decline  of  the  French  population, 
ignoring  the  fact  that  the  restriction  of  births 
was  a  universal  law  of  modern  civilization,  and 
that  in  France  the  decrease  was  due  to  a  higher 
standard  of  living,  and  even  more  to  an  increased 
sense  of  parental  responsibility.     Again  critics 


INTRODUCTION  19 

would  point  to  the  increase  of  crime  and  intem- 
perance, forgetting  that  crime  was  everywhere 
on  the  increase,  and  that  in  Germany  suicide  was 
playing   havoc    even  amongst    school-children ; 
forgetting  that  drink  was  even  more  a  curse  in 
Scotland    and    England    than    in    Normandy. 
Again,  English  critics  would  point  to  the  political 
corruption  and  anarchy  ever3rwhere  rampant, 
to  the  chronic  religious  dissensions,  to  perpetually 
recurring  scandals  such  as  the    Panama  affair, 
the  Humbert   and  Dreyfus  trials,  the  Caillaux 
drama — forgetting  that  this  political  and  social 
fermentation  might  only  be  the  result  of  a  more 
intense   political  and   spiritual  life,   of  deeper 
conflicts   between    spiritual   ideals ;    forgetting 
also  that  the  struggles  of  democracy  with  their 
attendant  risks  are  always  preferable  to   the 
passive    obedience    of    despotism    with   all   its 
security ;  forgetting  that  the  open  sores  of  France 
were  less  dangerous  than  the  hidden  malignant 
disorders  of  Germany ;  forgetting,  above  all,  that 
France   could   not   be  impunately  the  chosen 
ground   of   daring   political   and   religious   ex- 
periments  without   paying   the  price.     British 
critics  would  not  take  the  broad  and  philosophical 
and  sympathetic  view  of  the  French  situation. 
They  persisted  in  putting  the  worst  possible 
construction  on  every  symptom,  and  they  were 


20       THE   FEENCH   RENASCENCE 

congratulating  themselves  every  day  that  the 
German  and  Anglo-Saxon  races  were  not  like 
their  degenerate  Gallic  neighbours. 


IV 

When  the  hurricane  suddenly  burst  over  France, 
political  and  military  events  at  first  seemed  to 
confirm  the  most  glowing  anticipations  of  the 
pessimists.  A  few  weeks  before  the  declaration 
of  war,  Senator  Humbert  had  disclosed  the 
lamentable  unpreparedness  and  the  foul  cor- 
ruption in  high  places.  At  the  outbreak  of 
war,  the  insensate  murder  of  the  great  leader, 
Jaur^s,  seemed  as  ominous  as  the  suicide  of 
Prevost-Paradol  in  1870.  The  sudden  collapse 
of  military  resistance,  the  defeat  at  Mons,  the 
retreat  of  the  French  armies  all  along  the  line, 
seemed  to  justify  the  worst  fears.  In  1870 
Paris,  at  least,  had  opposed  a  heroic  resistance. 
In  1914  the  capital  was  abandoned  at  the  very 
approach  of  the  enemy.  In  1870  the  Govern- 
ment had  only  retired  to  Bordeaux  when  the 
situation  had  become  hopeless.  In  1914  the 
French  Government  retired  to  Bordeaux  within 
two  weeks  of  the  German  invasion.  Alarmists 
prophesied  the  total  breakdown  of  the  military 
resistance.     They   expected   every   moment   to 


INTRODUCTION  21 

hear  that  the  capital  had  capitulated:  Finis 
Galliae  !  France  was  to  share  the  fate  of  Poland, 
and  like  Poland  she  was  to  fall  a  prey  to  cor- 
ruption and  anarchy. 


Then  the  great  miracle  happened.  Once  more 
Prance  manifested  that  recuperative  power  which 
she  has  revealed  all  through  her  tragic  history. 

At  the  end  of  the  Hundred  Years'  War,  when 
the  country  seemed  at  her  last  gasp  ;  when  the 
Duke  of  Burgundy,  the  greatest  vassal  of  the 
French  crown,  the  head  of  the  younger  Capetian 
branch,  had  betrayed  the  national  cause  and 
joined  hands  with  the  enemy  ;  when  the  English 
invaded  and  occupied  the  whole  of  Northern 
and  Central  France  on  this  side  of  the  Loire,  one 
of  those  strange  events  happened  which  make 
French  history  read  like  a  fairy  tale  and  a 
mystery  play,  rather  than  like  a  bald  record  of 
prosaic  facts.  A  peasant  girl  of  seventeen  years 
of  age  arose  and  announced  that  angels  had 
appeared  to  her  and  had  entrusted  to  her  the 
mission  of  saving  the  people.  Joan  of  Arc 
placed  herself  at  the  head  of  the  army,  and  in  a 
few  months  cleared  the  country  of  the  enemy. 

After   450  years,   once   more   France   found 


22        THE   FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

herself  in  the  same  desperate  situation.  Again 
the  horrors  of  civil  war  were  added  to  the 
horrors  of  foreign  war.  The  insolent  manifesto 
of  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  declared  that  Paris 
would  be  razed  to  the  ground.  The  country- 
was  bankrupt.  There  was  no  Government  left 
and  no  army  left.  Again  the  nation  rose  in  arms. 
Ragged  bands  of  volunteers  crushed  the  Prussian 
invader  on  the  hills  of  Valmy.  Once  more 
France  was  saved  by  a  miracle. 

And  now  once  more  in  1914,  when  the  country 
had  been  betrayed  by  incompetent  and  corrupt 
leaders,  when  everything  seemed  lost,  the  people 
arose  to  the  national  emergency,  pulled  them- 
selves together.  They  proclaimed  the  sacred 
truce  of  parties.  They  rallied  like  one  man  in  the 
presence  of  the  enemy. 

Yet  the  peril  in  August  and  September  of  1914 
seemed  greater  than  it  had  ever  been  at  any 
previous  crisis  of  French  history.  Everything 
seemed  to  favour  the  foe.  His  treacherous 
onslaught  had  taken  the  French  nation  by 
surprise.  Whilst  the  French  armies  were  pre- 
paring to  meet  an  attack  on  the  Eastern 
front,  the  Prussian  burglar  had  entered  by  the 
Belgian  backdoor  and  by  a  frontier  denuded  of 
fortresses  and  troops.  The  enemy  was  reaping 
all  the  military  advantages  of  his  own  crime,  of 


INTRODUCTION  23 

the  violation  of  Belgian  neutrality,  and  was  also 
reaping  all  the  military  advantages  of  a  rigid 
maintenance  by  the  Allies  of  the  neutrality  of 
Holland.  The  enemy  enjoyed  all  the  superiority 
of  preparations  on  a  colossal  scale,  of  gigantic 
accumulations  of  war  material.  He  enjoyed  all 
the  superiority  of  a  despotic  form  of  Government, 
permitting  a  unity  and  concentration  of  power 
which  are  impossible  in  a  free  democracy.  And 
last,  not  least,  the  enemy  possessed  all  the  moral 
force  of  a  war  spirit  which  had  been  inculcated 
by  a  systematic  education,  and  which  a  peaceful 
nation  like  the  French  could  not  possess.  And 
last,  not  least,  the  enemy  had  all  the  driving 
power  of  an  insensate  race  hatred  and  of  a 
military  fanaticism  to  which  we  can  only  find  an 
historical  parallel  in  the  religious  fanaticism 
of  the  Mohammedan  hordes  at  the  zenith  of 
their  military  power. 

Notwithstanding  all  those  advantages  of  the 
barbarians,  the  whole  military  scheme  of  the 
German  invader  collapsed  in  a  dramatic  failure. 
The  hosts  which  had  swept  like  an  irresistible 
tide  over  Northern  France  were  suddenly  thrown 
back  in  the  fateful  battle  of  the  Marne,  one  of  the 
decisive  battles  of  Universal  History.  To-day, 
after  twelve  months,  two  million  of  stout  French 
hearts  still  oppose  to  the  invader  a  Uving  wall 


24         THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

of  400  miles.  After  twelve  months,  notwith- 
standing a  reckless  sacrifice  of  lives,  the  Germans 
have  been  battering  that  wall  in  vain.  For 
twelve  months  the  French  have  borne  the  brunt 
of  the  fight  and  the  heat  of  the  day,  whilst  their 
British  and  Russian  Allies  were  getting  ready 
for  the  combined  counter-offensive,  which  was  to 
deal  the  crushing  blow  to  Prussian  militarism. 

VI 

But  not  only  did  France  in  her  hour  of  trial 
reveal  a  resisting  power  which  staggered  her 
enemies,  she  also  revealed  moral  and  spiritual 
resources  which  amazed  her  friends.  She  com- 
pelled us  to  revise  all  our  judgments.  She 
revealed  to  us  how  much  she  had  learned  in  the 
fitern  school  of  adversity. 

We  had  been  told  ad  nauseam  that  excitability, 
emotionalism  were  the  main  traits  of  the  Gallic 
character.  And  now,  behold !  in  the  darkest 
hour  of  her  history  she  preserved  a  marvellous 
self-restraint  and  an  impressive  calmness.  I  was 
present  in  Paris  at  the  beginning  of  August, 
during  the  first  days  of  mobilization.  I  saw 
at  the  Gare  de  Lyon,  at  the  Gare  du  Nord,  at  the 
Gare  de  TEst,  day  and  night,  over  one  million 
French  soldiers  entrained.     There  was  no  beating 


INTRODUCTION  26 

of  drums.  There  was  no  war  fever,  and  I  did 
not  see  one  drunken  man.  There  was  no  police- 
man to  keep  order,  and  there  was  no  disorder  in 
the  streets.  Every  soldier  left  for  the  battle 
resolute  and  determined  as  for  the  performance 
of  a  solemn  and  sacred  duty. 

We  had  been  told  that  the  French,  after  an 
initial  spurt  of  enthusiasm,  would  be  found 
lacking  in  staying  power  ;  that  their  effervescent 
temperament,  which  might  be  suitable  for  a 
vigorous  offensive,  for  Napoleonic  tactics  would 
probably  be  found  unsuitable  for  the  defensive. 
And  now,  behold  !  they  revealed  in  defensive 
warfare  the  same  tenacity  of  purpose,  the  same 
cheerful  contempt  of  death,  the  same  patient  and 
stoical  heroism  which  their  Russian  Allies  were 
manifesting  in  the  Eastern  Theatre  of  War. 

We  were  warned  that  under  the  influence  of  a 
succession  of  reverses  they  would  succumb  to  the 
old  fatal  Gallic  individualism,  to  that  lack  of 
discipline,  to  that  incapacity  for  leadership,  to 
that  "  spontaneous  anarchy  ''  which  were  bound 
to  spell  disaster.  And  behold  !  the  evacuation 
of  Paris,  the  withdrawal  of  the  Government, 
instead  of  giving  a  chance  to  the  demagogues, 
only  welded  more  firmly  together  the  unity  of  the 
nation.  Instead  of  indulging  in  political  dis- 
sensions, every  Frenchman,  from  the  journalist 


26         THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

to  the  artisan,  worked  in  complete  unanimity 
amongst  themselves  and  in  absolute  harmony 
with  their  Allies.  And  the  religious  divisions 
vanished  as  well  as  the  political.  Twenty 
thousand  priests  were  incorporated  as  common 
soldiers  in  the  French  armies.  Those  priests 
worked  like  heroes  on  the  battlefield,  and  after 
the  battle  they  ministered  to  the  wounded  like 
saints.  There  have  been  strikes  or  threats  of 
strikes  in  England,  in  Scotland  and  in  Wales. 
There  have  been  divisions  in  Russia.  In  France 
the  Sacred  Union,  the  "  Union  Sacree  "  has  not 
been  broken  for  one  day. 


VII 

From  the  beginning  of  the  war,  in  every  one  of  her 
actions,  in  her  reverses  as  in  her  successes,  France 
has  given  the  lie  to  her  enemies.  She  has 
justified  those  who  loved  her  and  believed  in  her. 
She  has  disconcerted  and  amazed  her  critics. 
Those  critics,  in  their  surprise  and  in  their 
eagerness  to  explain  away  their  previous  false 
judgments,  are  speaking  to-day  of  a  "  new 
spirit,"'  of  a  dramatic  transformation  of  the 
French  character.  They  tell  us  that  the  war 
has  breathed  a  new  soul  into  the  people.     But 


INTRODUCTION  27 

that  explanation  of  the  critics  is  as  superficial 
as  were  their  former  blunders.  What  we  are 
to-day  observing  in  France  is  not  something  new, 
it  is  something  very  old  and  very  familiar.  It 
is  the  old  heroism,  the  old  vitality  which  are 
asserting  themselves.  The  well-meaning  foreign 
journalists,  whose  whole  horizon  was  bounded 
by  the  cofiee-houses  of  the  boulevards,  are 
amazed  by  this  sudden  revelation  of  order  and 
restraint,  of  devotion  and  sacrifice.  But  French 
life  in  the  past  has  ever  been  a  miracle  of  orderli- 
ness and  devotion  to  duty.  Those  scribblers 
who  told  us  that  there  was  no  family  life  in 
France,  that  the  French  language  did  not  even 
possess  a  word  to  express  the  idea  of  "  home," 
apparently  did  not  suspect  that  French  family 
life  was  something  very  beautiful  and  very 
sacred  ;  that  even  in  modern  Babylon  there  were 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  Middle  Class  homes 
whose  whole  existence  was  a  discipline  in  self- 
sacrifice.  The  scribblers  who  sternly  condemned 
the  meanness  and  selfishness  of  the  French 
temperament,  who  denounced  French  marriages 
as  mercenary,  who  abused  the  French  institution 
of  the  Dowry,  did  not  know  that  this  much- 
abused  French  institution  of  the  Dowry  was  an 
everyday  school  of  thrift  and  self-restraint  and 
self-suppression;   that    from  the    first   day   of 


28         THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

marriage,  before  their  first  child  is  born,  the 
young  couple  are  providing  for  the  future. 

But  let  us  not  be  hard  on  those  foreign  critics. 
This  is  an  age  of  prose  and  realism.  How  could 
it  do  full  justice  to  a  nation  of  artists  and  ideal- 
ists ?  This  is  a  calculating  and  scientific  genera- 
tion. How  could  it  do  justice  to  a  French  spirit 
which  has  ever  eluded  calculation,  where  it  is  the 
incalculable  and  the  unexpected  which  always 
happens  ? 

In  the  now  distant  days  when  misunder- 
standings were  rife,  when  an  important  section 
of  the  English  people  were  under  the  spell  of 
<5rallophobes,  when  France  herself  was  distracted 
by  civil  quarrels  and  religious  dissensions,  when 
it  sometimes  seemed  as  if  the  French  ship  were 
threatened  with  shipwreck — a  great  English 
poet,  too  much  neglected  to-day,  expressed  her 
unshakable  faith  in  the  French  people.  Eliza- 
beth Barrett  Browning  understood  the  spirit 
of  France  as  few  Englishmen  have  under- 
stood it.  The  following  lines  of  Aurora  Leigh 
reveal  a  deeper  insight  and  contain  a  deeper 
truth  than  are  contained  in  all  the  ponderous 
-volumes  of  the  detractors  of  French  genius  : — 

"  And  so  I  am  strong  to  love  this  noble  France, 
This  poet  of  the  nations,  who  dreams  on 
For  ever,  after  some  ideal  good, — 
Some  spontaneous  brotherhood. 


INTRODUCTION  29 

Some  wealth  that  leaves  none  poor  and  finds  non& 

tired, 
Some  freedom  of  the  many  that  respects 
The  wisdom  of  the  few.     Heroic  dreams  ! 
SubUme,  to  dream  so  ;   natural  to  wake  : 
May  God  save  France  ! 


VIII 

Thus,  0  generous  and  gentle  nation  of  the  Gauls, 
did  a  magnanimous  English  singer,  with  the 
sympathy  of  a  woman  and  the  insight  of  a  genius, 
pay  thee  thy  just  meed  of  praise.  And  to-day 
her  inspired  words  are  finding  an  echo  in  every 
British  heart.  There  are  nations  whom  we 
respect ;  there  are  other  nations  whom  we  also 
love.  There  are  nations  whom  we  both  love 
and  respect.  But  thee,  0  France  !  we  revere 
with  a  reverence  less  distant  and  more  intimate  t 
Thee  we  love  with  a  more  personal  and  more 
tender  love,  and  they  love  thee  most  who  know 
thee  best. 

We  admire  thee  for  thy  marvellous  gifts,  for 
thy  luminous  reason,  for  the  glories  of  thy  past, 
for  the  integrity  and  honesty  of  thy  intellect, 
for  thy  romantic  spirit  of  adventure,  for  the 
loftiness  of  thy  courage. 

And  we  love  thee  for  thy  grace  and  gentleness, 
for  thy  courtesy  and  chivalry  ;    because  thou 


30         THE  FKENCH  RENASCENCE 

hast  ever  been  the  knight-errant  of  every  crusade, 
because  thou  hast  ever  been  the  champion  of  the 
weak  and  the  oppressed  ;  because  thou  hast 
ever  been  ready  to  lose  thy  soul  in  order  to  save 
thy  soul  and  to  redeem  the  souls  of  others  ', 
because  thou  hast  ever  sought  the  beautiful 
rather  than  the  useful,  wisdom  rather  than 
power,  right  rather  than  might.  Already  in 
the  forests  of  the  Druids,  two  thousand  years 
ago,  thy  Gallic  children  had  raised  on  a  pinnacle 
the  Priest  and  the  Teacher,  the  Judge  and  the 
Law-maker,  exalted  high  above  the  brute  force 
of  arms.  All  through  thy  heroic  history,  the 
sword  of  the  soldier  has  only  been  wielded  in 
defence  of  an  idea,  and  military  force  has  only 
been  the  instrument  of  a  higher  purpose. 

And  we  love  thee  because  of  thy  infinite  wit 
and  thy  inexhaustible  cheerfulness.  Thou  hast 
ever  been  radiating  joy  around  thee.  Thy  heroes 
are  smiling  even  in  the  face  of  death.  Thy 
teachers,  Rabelais  and  Montaigne,  taught  us 
that  whilst  pedantry  is  sullen  and  repellent, 
wisdom  ever  wears  a  serene  and  joyful  counten- 
ance. 

And  we  love  thee  because  of  thy  humanity. 
Thou  art  human  and  compassionate  to  the 
frailties  of  thy  children.  Thou  dost  not  claim 
for  them  a  perfection  which  is  not  granted  to 


INTRODUCTION  31 

mortal  man.  Thou  dost  not  hide  their  short- 
comings under  the  cloak  of  hypocrisy.  Thy 
enemies  have  called  thy  children  vainglorious, 
but  even  thy  enemies  have  not  dared  to  call  them 
proud.  Thou  never  didst  worship  a  Teutonic 
*'  Superman."'  Rather  didst  thou  extol  the 
humble,  the  meek  and  the  weak.  Thy  sociable 
instinct  has  ever  taught  thy  children  that 
pride  is  the  most  odious  of  vices,  because  it  is 
the  most  unsociable,  because  it  is  the  one  vice 
which  isolates  us  from  the  fellowship  of  man. 

And  we  love  thee  because  thou  art  incapable 
of  hatred.  Thy  national  Epics,  like  the  Chanson 
de  Roland,  are  poems  of  chivalry,  of  knightly 
deeds.  The  Epics  of  the  Teuton,  like  the 
Nihelungen  Lied,  are  poems  of  hatred  and  revenge. 
The  Teutons  are  to-day  what  they  were  in  the 
past.  They  are  relentless  in  their  rancour, 
merciless  in  their  vindictiveness.  And  their 
rancour  is  retrospective.  They  cannot  and 
will  not  forget.  Treitschke  is  still  brooding 
over  imaginary  wrongs  committed  a  thousand 
years  ago.  Thou  hast  ever  been  ready  to 
forget  and  to  forgive.  Thou  dost  not  under- 
stand hatred.  Thou  dost  not  brandish  the 
dagger  of  revenge.  Thou  leavest  vengeance  to 
^Grod  Almighty.  Thou  leavest  retribution  to 
-Eternal  Justice. 


32       THE  FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

Enthroned  in  the  very  centre  of  the  old 
Continent,  in  a  temperate  clime,  under  sunny 
skies,  in  thee  all  antagonisms  are  reconciled,  in 
thee  all  contrasts  are  harmonized,  all  extremes  are 
attempered.  Temperance,  moderation,  measure, 
equipoise  and  rhythm  are  the  hall-marks  of  thy 
genius,  as  they  were  the  hall-marks  of  the  Greeks. 
In  thee  all  nations  commune.  In  the  Golden 
Age  of  the  Catholic  Church,  twenty  thousand 
scholars  gathered  within  the  walls  of  thy  ancient 
colleges,  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  Thy 
*'  angelic  doctors ""  and  thy  "  seraphic  doctors  '* 
preached  the  universal  faith.  And  ever  since, 
the  world  has  been  willing  to  sit  at  the  feet  of 
thy  teachers.  Ever  since  thy  Capital  has  been 
the  metropolis  of  civilization.     Vrhs  orbis. 

Thou  art  heir  to  the  experience  of  all  the  ages, 
to  the  wisdom  of  Athens  and  Rome.  Thy  spirit 
of  adventure,  thy  passion  for  daring  political 
experiments,  thy  craving  for  justice  has  misled 
people  into  thinking  that  thou  art  subversive 
of  the  past.  Thy  passion  for  truth  has  misled 
foreign  critics  into  the  belief  that  thou  art 
lacking  in  reverence.  But  in  no  other  country 
is  the  past  more  living.  In  no  other  country 
is  there  a  more  pious  and  grateful  feeling  for  the 
achievements  of  her  ancestors.  No  cult  is  more 
devoutly  observed  by  thy  people  than  the  "  Cult 


INTKODUCTION  3» 

of  the  Dead."  And  has  not  one  of  the  greatest 
of  thy  thinkers  reminded  us  of  the  eternal 
truth  that  in  appraising  the  spiritual  legacy  of 
humanity  the  dead  must  be  counted  more  than 
the  living. 

Of  all  these  legacies  of  thy  wonderful  past 
thy  language  is  the  most  wonderful :  simple, 
graceful,  truthful  as  thy  own  image.  It  has 
succeeded  to  the  universality  of  the  language 
of  Imperial  Kome.  The  greatest  of  German 
philosophers  and  the  greatest  of  Prussian  kings 
only  used  thy  language.  The  greatest  historian 
of  England  deemed  it  the  only  fitting  medium 
in  which  to  write  his  masterpiece.  The  solemn 
covenants  between  nations  are  still  written  in 
French.  In  thy  luxuriant  youth,  Brunetto 
Latino,  the  master  of  Dante,  praised  thy 
speech  as  the  most  "  delectable ''  of  all.  In  thy 
vigorous  maturity  the  genius  of  thy  children, 
the  genius  of  Montaigne  and  Descartes,  of  Balzac 
and  Victor  Hugo,  have  added  their  perfections 
to  thy  speech  and  made  it  for  all  ages  to  come 
the  vehicle  of  universal  reason. 

Far  away  in  the  Northern  mists,  in  a  Celtic 
land  which  was  ever  thy  loyal  ally,  in  the  land 
of  Mary  Stuart,  the  hapless  Queen  who  ruled 
over  thy  people,  in  an  ancient  seat  of  learning, 
it  has  been  my  privilege  and  pride  for  twenty 


34         THE  FEENCH  KENASCENCE 

years  to  worship  at  thy  shrine,  even  I,  the  least 
worthy  of  thy  worshippers.  Far  away  from 
thy  smiling  vineyards  and  thy  sunlit  plains,  I 
have  taught  others  to  love  thee  even  as  I  love 
thee.  I  have  tried  to  tell  the  young  generation 
of  the  British  Empire  all  that  the  world  owes  to 
thee,  and  I  have  challenged  the  slanderers  of 
thy  fair  fame.  I  have  tried  to  kindle  in  receptive 
young  minds  the  sacred  fire  of  thy  soul.  I  have 
tried  to  awaken  in  their  minds  a  passion  for  thy 
grace  and  for  thy  beauty. 

In  bygone  days,  it  was  said  of  thy  pleasant 
land  of  Gaul  that  it  was  the  most  beautiful 
Ejngdom  God  ever  created  after  his  own 
Kingdom  of  Heaven.  Chroniclers  extolled  the 
"  deeds  of  God  through  the  Franks,""  Gesta  Dei 
per  Francos.  For  thy  Frankish  Kings  were 
saints,  and  even  thy  maidens  were  heroes. 
Greatly  has  the  world  changed  since  those  days- 
But  thy  spirit,  0  France,  has  not  changed.  Thy 
modern  palaces,  even  as  thy  ancient  cathedrals, 
still  reveal  thy  virtues.  The  sanctuary  of  Rheims, 
razed  by  the  Barbarians,  was  the  Parthenon  of 
Christendom.  As  in  the  days  of  St.  Louis, 
of  Ste.  G^nevi^ve  and  Joan  of  Arc,  France  is 
still  doing  the  "  deeds  of  God.'"  Thou  art  still 
accomplishing  the  Divine  purpose  in  humanity. 
As  in  the  days  of  the  Maid  of  Orleans,  the  God 


INTRODUCTION  36 

who  ever  protected  thee  is  still  choosing  the 
humblest  and  the  poorest  amongst  thy  children 
to  manifest  His  Divine  will. 

Thou  hast  indeed  been  fortunate  in  thy 
children  and  in  thy  servants.  Thou  hast  lifted 
them  above  themselves  to  the  level  of  thy  ideals. 
There  are  other  races  which  have  not  been  thus 
fortunate.  The  ideals  of  nations  are  not  always 
divine  ideals,  they  are  only  too  often  heathen 
idols  and  tribal  gods.  It  has  happened  in  the 
past,  it  is  happening  even  now,  that  all  the 
virtues  of  the  good  and  honest  men  amongst 
thy  enemies  have  only  been  used  to  perpetrate 
appalling  crimes  in  the  service  of  those  cruel 
tribal  gods. 

Even  though  thy  children  have  served  thee 
well,  thou  art  much  greater  than  thy  children. 
They  may  wander  away  from  thy  path.  Nor 
is  thy  greatness  affected  by  their  shortcomings. 
Thy  purity  has  not  been  tarnished  by  their 
impurity,  nor  thy  gentleness  by  their  violence. 

And  that  is  why,  0  gentle  and  generous  France, 
in  this  thy  supreme  hour  of  trial,  we  maintain 
an  unwavering  and  unshaken  trust  in  thy  final 
victory.  We  trust  in  thy  triumph  simply  be- 
cause we  believe  in  Divine  Providence,  simply 
because  we  cannot  admit  that  the  moral  order 
has  suddenly  been  subverted.     Sooner  far  would 


36         THE  FEENCH  EENASCENCE 

we  believe  that  the  sun  and  the  stars  will  cease 
to  shine,  and  will  drop  from  the  high  heavens. 
We  are  convinced  in  our  hearts  that  thou 
shalt  emerge  from  thy  tragic  ordeal  as  radiant 
as  ever.  The  motto  of  thy  capital — flucticat 
nee  mergitur — is  engraved  on  every  page  of  thy 
chequered  annals.  The  bark  which  carried  the 
fortunes  of  France,  like  the  bark  of  Lutetia,  has 
been  "  ever  tossed  on  the  waves,  but  it  has 
never  been  submerged."'  How  often  in  thy  past 
history  did  everything  seem  lost  !  Yet  thou 
didst  keep  thy  stout  heart  and  still  thou  didst 
challenge  thine  enemies.  Thou  shalt  repel  the 
Teuton  as  the  Maid  of  Orleans  repelled  the 
invader.  Thy  men  and  women  shall  still  save 
thee  from  the  modern  Hun  as  Ste.  Genevieve 
saved  thee  from  the  Huns  of  Attila.  Thou  shalt 
crush  the  modern  Prussian  in  the  forests  of 
Argonne  as  thou  once  didst  crush  the  same 
Prussian  on  the  hills  of  Valmy.  And  thou 
shalt  emerge  from  thy  trials,  glorified  by  thy 
sufierings,  justified  by  thy  faith.  And  thy 
people  shall  continue  bearing  aloft  the  torch 
of  Justice  and  Liberty,  entrusted  by  thee  to 
their  fathers,  still  diffusing  Joy  and  Beauty, 
Sweetness  and  Light,  still  triumphant  over  the 
the  Powers  of  Darkness. 


MONTAIGNE 


MONTAIGNE 


In  the  year  of  our  Lord  1572,  the  Annus  Mirabilis 
of  French  history,  when  the  massacre  of  the  night 
of  St.  Bartholomew  sent  a  thrill  of  horror  through- 
out the  civilized  world,  when  the  bells  of  the 
Church  of  St.  Germain  TAuxerrois  were  sounding 
the  death-knell  of  thousands  of  Huguenots, 
when  his  most  Christian  Majesty,  Charles  IX, 
and  his  most  august  mother,  the  Dowager  Queen 
Catherine  of  Medici,  were  witnessing  from  a 
window  of  the  Louvre  overlooking  the  Seine 
and  were  directing  and  enjoying  the  holy  and 
wholesale  slaughter  of  their  miscreant  subjects, 
there  lived  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Bordeaux, 
at  the  chateau  of  Montaigne,  a  country  noble- 
man of  moderate  fortune,  of  simple  habits,  and 
more  noted  for  his  learning  than  for  those  war- 
like qualities  becoming  his  rank  and  station. 

II 

He  claimed  to  be  of  ancient  lineage  and  of 
English  descent,  although,  if  the  truth  be  told, 
his  grandfather  was  only  a  fish  merchant.     In 

38 


MONTAIGNE  39 

his  youth  he  had  been  a  keen  man  of  pleasure, 
but  in  his  mature  age  he  had  learned  to  curb 
the  passions  of  a  sensuous  temperament,  and 
he  had  come  to  profess  a  profound  contempt 
for  that  fair  sex  of  which  he  had  been  such 
an  ardent  and  such  a  fickle  admirer.  He  was 
a  sorry  husband,  which  might  have  been  the 
fault  of  his  wife.  He  was  a  bad  father,  which 
certainly  was  not  the  fault  of  his  children.  He 
was  an  indifferent  citizen,  and  there  was  a  public 
rumour  that,  having  been  made  a  mayor  of  his 
native  city,  and  the  great  plague  having  broken 
out  during  his  tenure  of  office,  he  fled  for  his  life, 
and  left  his  fellow-citizens  to  grapple  with  the 
disease.  He  was  one  of  those  leaders  of  men 
who  consider  personal  safety  the  better  part  of 
discretion,  and  who  think  that  the  first  duty  of 
a  leader  is  to  follow. 

Ill 

In  his  younger  years  the  Lord  of  Montaigne 
had  also  shown  an  eager  desire  to  push  his  way 
into  politics.  He  professed  to  be  a  loyal  son  of 
the  Church,  and  was  never  tired  of  cursing  those 
wicked  Huguenots.  He  was  an  enthusiastic 
admirer  of  the  Guises,  the  leaders  of  the  Catholic 
party,  and  when  counsels  of  moderation  for  one 
moment  prevailed  over  bigotry  and  fanaticism, 


40         THE  FRENCH  EENASCENCE 

the  young  man,  although  himself  a  sceptic 
and  a  pagan,  went  out  of  his  way  to  protest 
against  the  policy  of  toleration  inaugurated  by 
the  Chancellor  THopital,  in  order  to  ingratiate 
himself  with  those  in  power.  But  he  soon 
discovered  that  political  honours  were  a  burden 
and  a  danger,  and  that  at  best  they  were 
absolutely  incompatible  with  ease  and  liberty, 
which  he  valued  above  all  things.  And  there- 
fore, having  filled  for  a  few  years  several  dis- 
tinguished legal  offices,  he  decided  to  live  in  the 
seclusion  of  his  own  manor.  And  there,  in  the 
old  tower,  fitted  up  with  a  magnificent  library, 
he  would  hold  converse  with  one  or  two  select 
friends,  but  especially  with  those  quietest  and 
most  loyal  of  all  friends,  the  silent  occupants  of 
his  shelves.  And  there,  whilst  the  whole  of 
France  was  devastated  by  predatory  warfare, 
overlooking  from  his  turret  the  champaigns  and 
vineyards  of  Gascony,  he  would  contemplate, 
with  philosophic  composure,  the  political  tragedy 
which  was  being  enacted. 

Others,  indeed,  might  be  distressed  by  the 
awful  condition  of  their  unhappy  country ; 
others,  again,  might  be  "  sicklied  over  with  the 
pale  cast  of  thought '' ;  but  the  temperament 
of  the  Lord  of  Montaigne  was  so  happily  con- 
stituted that  nothing  could  disturb  the  serene 


vs/.  y-s 


MICHEL  EYQUEM,  SEIGNEUR  DE  MONTAIGNE, 
NATUS  1539,  OBIT  1592. 


42        THE  FEENCH  EENASCENCE 

equanimity  of  his  disposition.  It  has  been  said 
that  to  those  who  are  content  to  think,  life  is 
only  a  comedy  ;  whilst  to  those  who  feel,  life 
must  needs  be  a  tragedy.  The  Gascon  noble- 
man belonged  pre-eminently  to  the  thinking 
kind,  and  not  to  the  feeling.  He  had  never 
been  troubled  with  a  morbid  sensibility,  and, 
therefore,  the  most  harrowing  horrors  enacted 
under  his  very  eyes  would  only  appear  in  the 
light  of  a  tragi-comedy  of  surpassing  interest. 


IV 

And  thus  year  after  year  he  would  pursue  the 
equable  tenor  of  his  life,  escaping,  by  his  con- 
tinuous good  fortune,  from  all  those  perils  which 
were  threatening  his  neighbours.  Once  or  twice, 
indeed,  when  the  hurricane  of  civil  war  was 
surging  and  raging  too  furiously,  he  would  think 
it  safe  for  a  brief  moment  to  withdraw  from  the 
tempestuous  scene,  and  he  would  prefer  the 
stimulus  and  excitement  of  travel  to  the  imminent 
dangers  involved  by  staying  at  home.  But  as 
soon  as  the  hurricane  had  passed  over,  he  would 
repair  again  to  his  beloved  castle  and  observatory, 
to  his  friends  and  to  his  books.  And,  as  time 
went  on,  in  the  summer  of  his  life,  he  would  more 
and  more  give  up  all  his  days  to  solitude  and 


MONTAIGNE  43 

contemplation.  And,  meditating  on  his  distant 
travels,  on  the  stirring  events  of  his  times,  on 
the  civil  dissensions,  on  the  discoveries  and 
explorations  of  new  countries,  and  reading  those 
great  masters  of  antiquity  who  had  recently 
been  discovered,  he  would  write  down  the  result 
of  his  experiences,  and  he  would  note  the  im- 
pressions of  his  readings. 

And  having  thus  garnered  day  by  day,  year 
after  year,  the  rich  harvest  of  the  past,  the  idea 
naturally  occurred  to  him  that  those  private 
journals  ought  not  to  remain  private,  and  that 
he  ought  to  impart  to  the  world  the  benefit  of 
his  wisdom.  And  encouraged  thereto  by  the 
appreciation  of  his  friends,  he  finally  decided  to 
publish  his  experiments  at  authorship,  and  those 
"  Essays,""  or  "  attempts,""  as  he  called  them, 
appeared  in  a  ponderous  volume  in  the  year  of 
grace  1580. 

V 

A  very  strange  book  they  were,  those 
'*  Essays,""  desultory,  rambling,  and,  to  outward 
appearance,  rather  a  collection  of  stories  and 
anecdotes  than  a  treatise  with  a  plan  and 
purpose.  They  were  written  in  every  kind  of 
style,  in  turn  serious  and  frolicsome,  solemn 
and   frivolous,  pious   and   cynical.    They  em- 


44         THE  FEENCH  RENASCENCE 

braced  every  problem  of  life  and  death,  they 
dealt  with  theology  and  ethics,  with  literature 
and  politics.  From  a  chapter  on  cannibals 
we  pass  on  to  a  chapter  on  smells  and  public 
coaches  ;  from  a  chapter  on  treason  we  pass 
on  to  a  chapter  on  prayer. 

And  yet  this  strange  book,  by  an  eccentric 
and  egotistic  baronet  of  Gascony,  thus  ushered 
into  the  world  in  the  most  troubled  times  of  the 
French  wars  of  religion,  has  become  one  of  the 
great  books  of  world  literature.  The  country 
nobleman,  so  careful  of  living  in  retirement  and 
obscurity,  has  become  one  of  the  master-minds 
of  his  age  and  of  all  ages,  "  the  master  of  those 
who  know.'' 

VI 

The  vicissitudes  of  literary  reputations  are 
one  of  the  commonplaces  of  criticism.  But  we 
doubt  whether  there  is  another  instance  in  the 
history  of  letters  of  a  book  having  had  such  a 
singular  fortune  or  an  influence  so  deep,  so  far- 
reaching,  so  universal,  so  immediate,  and  yet  so 
permanent.  In  the  lifetime  of  the  writer,  when 
books  were  dear  and  readers  were  few,  it  attained 
a  sudden  popularity,  and  for  more  than  three 
hundred  years  the  *'  Essays ''  of  Montaigne 
have  been  one  of  the  forces  that  have  moulded 


.v^'    ^  •**i*y*t;^:: >.■■*;■"• ' 


,;i?. 


Sj^ 


46         THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

European  thought  and  literature,  in  substance 
as  well  as  in  form.  The  sceptical,  impious,  and 
immoral  writer  has  become  the  spiritual  father 
and  guide  of  the  most  devout  moralists,  of  the 
most  saintly  theologians.  The  "  litterateur " 
and  '*  dilettante,^'  who  knew  nothing  of  science, 
has  been  directly  or  indirectly  the  promoter  of 
a  great  scientific  revival.  The  recluse  has  be- 
come the  trusted  adviser  of  men  of  the  world. 
Nor  is  there  any  sign  that  the  popularity  of  the 
"  Essays  ""  is  on  the  wane.  Indeed,  the  book  is 
like  the  wine  of  the  author's  own  Southern 
vineyards ;  it  improves  and  becomes  more 
"  vital "  as  it  gets  older,  and  it  becomes  more 
valued  as  we  get  older,  as  we  are  able  to 
interpret  its  lessons  of  wisdom  from  our  own  life 
experiences. 

And  thus  the  ''  Essays  "  appear  to  us  as  one 
of  the  mountain  peaks  of  letters,  or  rather  as  a 
mountain  range  from  which  mighty  rivers  of 
thought  have  taken  their  source.  If,  indeed, 
you  tried  to  bring  together  all  the  great  men 
that  have  fallen  under  the  spell  of  the  Gascon, 
what  an  august  company  and  what  a  motley 
crowd  would  be  assembled  :  a  company  that 
would  join  in  unexpected  association  Shakespeare 
and  Moli^re,  Bacon  and  Bayle,  Pascal  and 
Rousseau,  Voltaire  and  Frederick  the  Great, 
La  Bruy^re  and  Ste.  Beuve. 


MONTAIGNE  47 

VII 

And  let  us  take  due  notice  of  the  fact  that  in 
that  illustrious  company  not  the  least  illustrious 
names  are  those  belonging  to  the  history  of 
English  thought,  and  that  the  influence  of  Mon- 
taigne in  England  is  not  the  least  extraordinary 
feature  in  the  miraculous  fortune  of  Montaigne's 
"  Essays/'  Here  is  a  foreigner,  a  Frenchman  of 
the  French,  a  Gascon  of  the  Gascons,  and  this 
alien  has  become  to  all  intents  and  purposes  an 
English  classic,  and  has  exerted  on  English 
literature  an  influence  as  great  as  that  which 
he  exerted  on  his  own  country.  The  work  of  that 
Frenchman,  translated  by  the  Italian  Florio,  has 
become  one  of  the  standard  books  of  a  litera- 
ture which  sometimes,  and  somewhat  foolishly, 
boasts  of  its  insular  and  splendid  isolation.  The 
greatest  thinker  of  the  Elizabethan  age  has  been 
so  completely  steeped  in  Montaigne  that  his 
"  Essays ''  would  never  have  appeared  but  for 
the  French  work  which  served  them  as  a  model. 
The  greatest  poet  of  the  Elizabethan  age,  and  of 
all  ages,  has  imbibed  Montaigne's  inmost  spirit 
so  thoroughly  that  he  has  dramatized  his  philo- 
sophy and  plagiarized  his  paradoxes.  Was  there 
ever  a  great  moralist  who  could  claim  nobler 
intellectual  progeny  than  Bacon  and  Shake- 
speare, not  to  mention  Dean  Church  and 
Emerson,  Walter  Pater  and  Fitzgerald  '{ 


MONTAIGNE  AND   NIETZSCHE 


MONTAIGNE   AND  NIETZSCHE 


There  is  a  continuity  and  heredity  in  the  trans- 
mission of  ideas  as  there  is  in  the  transmission  of 
life.  Each  great  thinker  has  a  spiritual  posterity, 
which  for  centuries  perpetuates  his  doctrine  and 
his  moral  personality.  And  there  is  no  keener 
intellectual  enjoyment  than  to  trace  back  to 
their  original  progenitors  one  of  those  mighty 
and  original  systems  which  are  the  milestones 
in  the  history  of  human  thought. 

It  is  with  such  a  spiritual  transmission  that 
I  am  concerned  in  the  present  paper.  I  would 
like  to  establish  the  intimate  connection 
which  exists  between  Montaigne  and  Nietzsche, 
between  the  greatest  of  French  moralists  and 
the  greatest  of  Germans.  A  vast  literature  has 
grown  up  in  recent  years  round  the  personality 
and  works  of  Nietzsche,  which  would  already 
fill  a  moderately  sized  library.  It  is,  therefore, 
strange  that  no  critic  should  have  emphasized 
and  explained  the  close  filiation  between  him  and 
Montaigne.  It  is  all  the  more  strange  because 
Nietzsche  himself  has  acknowledged  his  debt  to 

50 


MONTAIGNE   AND   NIETZSCHE      51 

the  **  Essays  '*  with  a  frankness  which  leaves 
no  room  to  doubt. 

To  any  one  who  knows  how  careful  Nietzsche 
was  to  safeguard  his  originality,  such  an  acknow- 
ledgment is  in  itself  sufficient  proof  of  the 
immense  power  which  Montaigne  wielded  over 
Nietzsche  at  a  decisive  and  critical  period  of  his 
intellectual  development.  But  only  a  systematic 
comparison  could  show  that  we  have  to  do  here 
with  something  more  than  a  mental  stimulus 
and  a  quickening  of  ideas,  that  Montaigne's 
"  Essays "'  have  provided  the  foundations  of 
Nietzsche's  philosophy,  and  that  the  French 
Pagan  may  rightly  be  called,  and  in  a  literal 
sense,  the  "  spiritual  father  ''  of  the  German. 


II 

At  first  sight  this  statement  must  appear  para- 
doxical, and  a  first  reading  of  the  two  writers 
reveals  their  differences  rather  than  their  resem- 
blances. The  one  strikes  us  as  essentially 
sane  ;  the  other,  even  in  his  first  books,  reveals 
that  lack  of  mental  balance  which  was  to  ter- 
minate in  insanity.  The  one  is  a  genial  sceptic  ; 
the  other  is  a  fanatic  dogmatist.  To  Montaigne 
life  is  a  comedy  ;  to  his  disciple  life  is  a  tragedy. 
The  one  philosophizes  with  a  smile  ;   the  other. 


52        THE   FKENCH   KENASCENCE 

to  use  his  own  expression,  philosophizes  with  a 
hammer.  The  one  is  a  Conservative  ;  the  other 
is  a  herald  of  revolt.  The  one  is  constitutionally 
moderate  and  temperate  ;  the  other  is  nearly 
always  extreme  and  violent  in  his  judgment. 
The  one  is  a  practical  man  of  the  world  ;  the 
other  is  a  poet  and  a  dreamer  and  a  mystic. 
The  one  is  quaintly  pedantic,  and  his  page  is 
often  a  mosaic  of  quotations ;  the  other  is 
supremely  original.  The  one  is  profuse  in  his 
professions  of  loyalty  to  the  Eoman  Catholic 
Church  ;  the  other  calls  himself  Anti-Christ. 


Ill 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  if  the  character- 
istics which  we  have  just  referred  to  belonged 
essentially  to  Montaigne,  there  would  be  little 
affinity  between  the  thought  of  Nietzsche  and 
that  of  Montaigne.  And  it  would  be  impossible 
to  account  for  the  magnetic  attraction  which 
drew  Nietzsche  to  the  study  of  the  "  Essays," 
and  for  the  enthusiasm  with  which  they  inspired 
him.  But  I  am  convinced  that  those  charac- 
teristics are  not  the  essential  characteristics. 
I  am  convinced  that  there  is  another  Montaigne 
who  has  nothing  in  common  with  the  Montaigne 
of  convention  and  tradition.    I  am  convinced 


MONTAIGNE   AND   NIETZSCHE      53 

that  the  scepticism,  the  Conservatism,  the  irony, 
the  moderation,  the  affectation  of  humility, 
frivolity,  pedantry,  and  innocent  candour,  are 
only  a  mask  and  disguise  which  Montaigne  has 
put  on  to  conceal  his  identity,  that  they  are  only 
so  many  tricks  and  dodges  to  lead  the  temporal 
and  spiritual  powers  off  the  track,  and  to  reassure 
them  as  to  his  orthodoxy.  I  am  convinced  that 
beneath  and  beyond  the  Montaigne  of  con- 
vention and  tradition  there  is  another  much 
bigger  and  much  deeper  Montaigne,  whose 
identity  would  have  staggered  his  contem- 
poraries, and  would  have  landed  him  in  prison. 
And  it  is  this  unconventional  and  real  Montaigne 
who  is  the  spiritual  father  of  Nietzsche. 

It  is  obviously  impossible,  within  the  limits 
of  a  brief  paper,  to  prove  this  far-reaching  state- 
ment and  to  establish  the  existence  of  an  esoteric 
and  profound  meaning  in  the  '*  Essays."  I  shall 
only  refer  to  a  passage  which  is  ignored  by 
most  commentators,  which  has  been  added  in  the 
posthumous  edition,  in  which  Montaigne  himself 
admits  such  a  double  and  esoteric  meaning,  and 
which  seems  to  me  to  give  the  key  to  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  *'  Essays  '' : — 

"  I  know  very  well  that  when  I  hear  any  one 
dwell  upon  the  language  of  my  essays,  I  had 
rather  a  great  deal  he  would  say  nothing  :    'tis 


54        THE   FKENCH   EENASCENCE 

not  so  much  to  praise  the  style  as  to  underrate  the 
sense,  and  so  much  the  more  offensively  as  they 
do  it  obliquely  ;  and  yet  I  am  much  deceived  if 
many  other  writers  deliver  more  worth  noting 
as  to  the  matter,  and,  how  well  or  ill  soever, 
if  any  other  writer  has  sown  things  much  more 
substantial,  or  at  all  events  more  downright, 
upon  his  paper  than  myself.  To  bring  the  more 
in,  I  only  muster  up  the  heads  ;  should  I  annex 
the  sequel  I  should  trebly  multiply  the  volume. 
And  how  many  stories  have  I  scattered  up  and 
down  in  this  book,  that  I  only  touch  upon,  which, 
should  any  one  more  curiously  search  into,  they 
would  find  matter  enough  to  produce  infinite 
essays.  Neither  those  stories  nor  my  quotations 
always  serve  simply  for  example,  authority,  or 
ornament ;  I  do  not  only  regard  them  for  the 
use  I  make  of  them ;  they  carry  sometimes, 
besides  what  I  apply  them  to,  the  seed  of  a  more 
rich  and  a  bolder  matter,  and  sometimes,  col- 
laterally, a  more  delicate  sound,  both  to  myself, 
who  will  say  no  more  about  it  in  this  place, 
and  to  others  who  shall  be  of  my  humour." 

IV 

The  real  and  esoteric  Montaigne  is,  like 
Nietzsche,  a  herald  of  revolt,  one  of  the  most 
revolutionary  thinkers  of  all  times.    And  the: 


MONTAIGNE   AND   NIETZSCHE      55 

Gascon  philosopher  who  philosophizes  with  a 
smile  is  far  more  dangerous  than  the  Teuton  who 
philosophizes  with  a  hammer.  The  corrosive 
acid  of  his  irony  is  more  destructive  than 
the  violence  of  the  other.  Like  Nietzsche, 
Montaigne  transvalues  all  our  moral  values. 
Nothing  is  absolute ;  everything  is  relative. 
There  is  no  law  in  morals. 

**  The  laws  of  conscience,  which  we  pretend  to* 
be  derived  from  nature,  proceed  from  custom  ; 
every  one,  having  an  inward  veneration  for  the 
opinions  and  manners  approved  and  received 
amongst  his  own  people,  cannot,  without  very 
great  reluctance,  depart  from  them,  nor  apply 
himself  to  them  without  applause/^ 

There  is  no  absolute  law  in  politics.  And  one 
form  of  government  is  as  good  as  another. 

"  Such  people  as  have  been  bred  up  to  liberty, 
and  subject  to  no  other  dominion  but  the 
authority  of  their  own  will,  look  upon  all  other 
forms  of  government  as  monstrous  and  contrary 
to  nature.  Those  who  are  inured  to  monarchy 
do  the  same ;  and  what  opportunity  soever 
fortune  presents  them  with  to  change,  even  then,, 
when  with  the  greatest  difficulties  they  have 
disengaged  themselves  from  one  master,  that 
was  troublesome  and  grievous  to  them,  they 
presently  run,  with  the  same  difficulties,  to  create 


56        THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

another  ;   being  unable  to  take  into  hatred  sub- 
jection itself/' 

There  is  no  law  in  religion.  There  is  no 
j ustification  in  patriotism.  The  choice  of  religion 
is  not  a  matter  of  conscience  or  of  reason,  but 
of  custom  and  climate.  We  are  Christians 
by  the  same  title  which  makes  us  Perigordins 
or  Germans. 


If  to  destroy  all  human  principles  and  illusions 
is  to  be  a  sceptic,  Montaigne  is  the  greatest  sceptic 
that  ever  existed.  But  Montaigne's  scepticism 
is  only  a  means  to  an  end.  On  the  ruin  of 
all  philosophies  and  religions  Montaigne,  like 
Nietzsche,  has  built  up  a  dogmatism  of  his  own. 
The  foundation  of  that  dogmatism  in  both  is  an 
unbounded  faith  in  life  and  in  nature.  Like 
Nietzsche,  Montaigne  is  an  optimist.  At  the 
very  outset  of  the  "  Essays ''  he  proclaims  the 
joy  of  life.  He  preaches  the  "  Gaya  scienza,'' 
the  "  frdhliche  Wissenschaft."  All  our  sufferings 
are  due  to  our  departing  from  the  teachings 
of  nature.  The  chapter  on  cannibalism,  from 
which  Shakespeare  has  borrowed  a  famous 
passage  in  The  Tempest,  and  which  has 
probably  suggested  the  character  of  Caliban, 


MONTAIGNE   AND   NIETZSCHE      57 

must  be  taken  in  literal  sense.  The  savage  who 
lives  in  primitive  simplicity  comes  nearer  to 
Montaigne's  ideal  of  perfection  than  the  philo- 
sopher and  the  saint. 


VI 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  fundamental  analogy 
between  Nietzsche  and  Montaigne.  Like  the 
Oerman,  the  Frenchman  is  a  pure  Pagan.  Here 
again  we  must  not  be  misled  by  the  innumerable 
professions  of  faith,  generally  added  in  later 
editions  and  not  included  in  the  edition  of  1580. 
Montaigne  is  uncompromisingly  hostile  to  Chris- 
tianity. His  Catholicism  must  be  understood  to 
be  the  Catholicism  of  Auguste  Comte,  aa  defined 
by  Huxley,  namely,  Catholicism  minus  Chris- 
tianity. He  glorifies  suicide.  He  abhors  the 
self  -  suppression  of  asceticism ;  he  derides 
chastity,  humility,  mortification — every  virtue 
which  we  are  accustomed  to  associate  with  the 
Christian  faith.  He  glorifies  self-assertion  and 
the  pride  of  life.  Not  once  does  he  express  even 
the  most  remote  sympathy  for  the  heroes  of  the 
Christian  Church,  for  the  saints  and  martyrs. 
On  the  other  hand,  again  and  again  he  indulges 
in  lyrical  raptures  for  the  achievements  of  the 
great  men   of    Greece    and    Rome.     He    is    an 


58         THE  FRENCH  KENASCENCE 

intellectual  aristocrat.  His  ideal  policy  is  the 
policy  of  the  Spartans — "  almost  miraculous  in 
its  perfection/'  His  ideal  man  is  the  Pagan 
hero — ^the  Superman  of  antiquity — Alcibiades, 
Epaminondas,  Alexander,  Julius  Caesar. 


PASCAL'S   "THOUGHTS" 


PASCAL'S   "THOUGHTS" 


The  launching  by  Messrs.  J.  M.  Dent  and  Sons 
of  a  French  "  Everyman's  Library "'  has  been 
the  sensational  event  of  the  publishing  year.^ 
It  is  now  four  years  since  Messrs.  Nelson  brought 
out  their  French  Collections,  over  the  literary 
fortunes  of  which  I  had  the  honour  to  preside 
until  I  assumed  the  onerous  responsibilities 
of  EvEEYMAN.  The  '*  Collection  Nelson''  has 
become  world  famous,  and  has  marked  a  new 
epoch  in  the  French  publishing  trade.  The 
Scottish  invasion  of  France  is  now  followed 
up  by  an  English  invasion.  The  *'  Collection 
Gallia  "  is  continuing  the  work  of  its  predecessor 
on  a  different  and,  I  think,  a  more  ambitious  and 
comprehensive  scale,  and  with  an  ampler  scope. 
It  is  placing  at  the  disposal  of  all  lovers  of 
French  literature  exquisite  shilling  editions  of 
French  classics.  Immediate  success  has  already 
justified  this  bold  undertaking.  The  Collection 
was  only  issued  a  few  weeks  ago,  and  already  the 

1  Written  in  1914. 
60 


PASCAL'S    "THOUGHTS"  61 

little  volumes  are  to  be  seen  on  every  village 
bookstall  in  France  and  at  every  leading  book- 
seller's on  the  Continent. 


II 

It  was  in  the  fitness  of  things  that  a  library 
of  French  classics  should  begin  with  one  of  the 
immortal  masterpieces  of  the  language,  a  master- 
piece which,  more  than  any  other,  can  claim  the 
credit  of  having  first  fixed  the  standard  of 
French  style.  Of  Pascal's  ''Thoughts"  there 
have  been  editions  innumerable,  but  the  present 
shilling  edition  is  likely,  for  many  years  to  come, 
to  be  the  favourite  one  with  the  reading  public. 
It  represents  the  joint  labours  of  the  three 
leading  Pascal  scholars  of  France.  Monsieur 
Boutroux,  the  master  of  Bergson,  and  leader 
of  the  new  school  of  French  philosophy  (and,  by 
the  way,  a  close  relation  of  President  Poincare), 
and  Monsieur  Victor  Giraud,  the  eminent  sub- 
editor of  the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes,  have  both 
contributed  illuminative  Introductions.  As  for 
the  critical  text  of  the  edition  itself,  it  has  been 
established  by  Monsieur  Brunschvigg,  and  is 
the  result  of  ten  years  of  benedictine  labour  and 
ingenious  research. 


62        THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

III 

English  students  of  French  literature  often 
overlook  the  very  important  fact  that  there  are 
two  entirely  different  strains  running  through 
the  whole  course  of  French  literature.  The 
most  conspicuous  writers  are,  no  doubt,  men 
of  the  type  of  Rabelais,  Montaigne,  Moli^re, 
Voltaire,  and  Anatole  France,  who  give  us,  in 
sparkling  and  epigrammatic  style,  that  incisive 
criticism  of  life  which  Matthew  Arnold,  in  his 
famous  essay  on  "  The  Literary  Influence  of 
Academies,'^  considers  as  the  chief  function  of 
the  French  mind,  and  who  represent  the  purely 
intellectual  and  artistic  outlook,  which  is  so 
often  divorced  from  and  opposed  to  the  moral 
view.  It  is  this  unbroken  continuity  of  masters 
of  wit  and  irony  which  has  given  currency  to 
the  theory  that  the  French  mind  is  naturally  of 
a  sceptical,  cynical,  and  flippant  turn,  and  that 
it  has  none  of  the  earnestness  and  depth  of  the 
Teutonic  mind.  That  theory  of  the  superficial- 
ness  of  the  French  mind  is  itself  based  on  a 
most  superficial  study  of  French  literature.  For 
every  serious  student  of  literature  knows  that, 
along  with  those  masters  of  wit  and  irony,  every 
generation  of  French  literature  has  produced  a 
succession  of  masters  of  ethical  and  religious 


PASCAL'S    "THOUGHTS"  63 

thought — men  of  the  stamp  of  Calvin,  Bossuet, 
Kousseau,  Chateaubriand,  Lamennais  —  char- 
acters of  intense  earnestness  and  passionate 
fervour.  Of  those  representative  teachers  and 
preachers,  Pascal  is  perhaps  the  greatest,  as 
he  is  certainly  the  most  striking,  personality  in 
the  Golden  Age  of  French  literature. 


IV 

About  the  exact  chronology  of  that  Golden  Age 
of  French  literature  there  is  still,  I  think,  a  great 
deal  of  confusion  of  thought.  To  the  majority 
of  critics  even  to-day  that  Golden  Age  is  pre- 
eminently the  age  of  Louis  XIV.  On  the 
contrary,  to  a  small  minority  the  Golden  Age  is 
the  age  of  Richelieu.  I  believe  that  it  is  the 
minority  which  is  right.  For  it  is  the  age  of 
Richelieu  which  is  truly  the  age  of  reconstruction 
and  creation.  It  is  the  age  which  produced 
everything  that  is  greatest  and  most  original 
in  French  culture.  It  is  the  age  of  Richelieu 
which  saw  the  rise  of  the  French  monarchy  in 
its  modern  form.  It  saw  the  establishment  of 
the  French  Academy  and  of  Port-Royal.  It 
saw  the  foundation  by  Descartes  of  modern 
French  philosophy.  It  saw  the  foundation  by 
Corneille  of  the  French  drama. 


64        THE    FRENCH    EENASCENCE 

To  that  age  Pascal  may  be  said  to  belong — 
a  giant  in  a  generation  of  giants.  It  is  true 
that  when  the  "  Provincial  Letters ""  appeared 
Louis  XIV  had  already  been  the  nominal  King 
of  France  for  thirteen  years.  But  at  that  date 
he  was  only  eighteen  years  of  age,  and  his^ 
personal  rule  had  not  begun.  And  it  would  be 
absurd  if  Louis  XIV  were  allowed  to  appropriate 
the  fame  of  a  writer  whose  genius  owes  all  its 
characteristics  to  the  discipline  of  an  early  day^ 
and  whose  writings  glorify  every  cause  whick 
it  was  the  policy  of  Louis  XIV  to  destroy. 


V 
Born  in   1623,  from  a  legal   stock,  belonging 
to  the  middle  class,  like  Moliere,  Bossuet  and 
Kacine,  like  most  of  the  great  writers  of  that  so- 
called  "  aristocratic  ''  age,  a  native  of  Auvergne, 
a    country    of    extinct    volcanoes    and    hardy 
mountaineers,  Blaise  Pascal  was  brought  up  in., 
an  atmosphere  of  piety  and  learning  by  a  father 
of  keen  scientific  tastes.     The  incidents  of  his 
education  recall  to  us  some  of  the  circumstances, 
in  the  upbringing  of  John  Stuart  Mill.     A  wonder 
child,  with  a  marvellous  disposition  for  niathe-^ 
matics,  Pascal,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  amazed 
even  Descartes  by  his  treatise  on  conical  sections^ 


PASCAL'S  "  THOUGHTS  "  65 

It  is  to  be  noted  in  this  connection  that  Pascars- 
training  was  almost  exclusively  scientific,  and 
it  is  certainly  remarkable  that  this  supreme 
master  of  literary  style  never  read  more  than  one 
book  of  secular  literature,  namely,  the  *'  Essays '' 
of  Montaigne,  whole  pages  of  which  are  incorpor-^ 
ated  and  almost  plagiarized  in  the  "  Thoughts." 

Blaise  Pascal  had  to  pay  the  penalty  of  his 
morbid  precocity  and  of  the  perilous  overstrain 
of  his  mental  faculties.  At  eighteen  years  of 
age  his  health  broke  down,  and  we  are  told 
that  after  this  breakdown  he  never  knew  one 
single  day  without  suffering.  It  was  under 
the  influence  of  his  illness  and  of  his  chance 
acquaintance  with  the  Jansenists  that  his  first 
"  conversion "'  took  place.  He  became  a  fervid 
Port-Royalist,  and  converted  his  family  to  his 
faith. 

The  effects  of  this  first  "  conversion  "  did  not 
last,  and  for  the  next  few  years  Pascal  was 
diverted  from  exclusive  absorption  in  religion 
by  the  distractions  of  society  and  by  his  interest 
in  scientific  pursuits.  To  this  time  belong  his 
famous  experiments  confirming  the  theories  of 
Torricelli. 

In  those  early  days  Pascal  little  resembled 
the  saint  and  enthusiast  he  was  to  become  in 
later   days.     He   was   worldly   and   aggressive. 


66         THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

He  quarrelled  with  Descartes.  He  quarrelled 
with  his  admirable  sister  Jacqueline,  and  wanted 
to  prevent  her  from  entering  the  convent,  partly 
for  sordid  financial  reasons.  During  those  brief 
years  also  Pascal  mixed  freely  in  Parisian  society. 
He  was  a  friend  of  libertines  and  freethinkers. 
He  thought  of  marriage,  and  it  is  presumed  that 
to  this  period  belongs  the  "  Discourse  on  the 
Passions  of  Love.'"  It  has  also  been  held  by 
many  biographers  that  the  object  of  Pascal's  love 
was  the  sister  of  his  friend,  the  Duke  of  Roannez, 
but  all  we  know  about  the  relations  between 
Pascal  and  the  Duchess  of  Roannez  is  that  it 
was  on  Pascal's  advice  that  the  young  lady 
renounced  the  world  and  entered  the  monastery 
of  Port-Royal. 

A  carriage  accident  near  the  bridge  of  Neuilly, 
in  which  he  was  saved  from  imminent  death  by 
a  miracle,  together  with  a  moral  and  intellectual 
crisis,  brought  about  Pascal's  second  **  con- 
version." He  left  Parisian  society  and  joined 
the  soHtaries  of  Port-Royal.  He  espoused  their 
•cause  against  the  Jesuits,  and  in  1656  he 
hurled  against  the  Reverend  Fathers  the  first  of 
his  eighteen  "  Provincial  Letters."  A  second 
lyiiracle,  by  which  his  niece.  Marguerite  Perrier, 
was  cured  by  the  touch  of  a  thorn  from  the 
crown  of  Jesus  Christ — a  relic  preserved  at  Port- 


PASCAL'S  ''  THOUGHTS  "  67 

Royal — convinced  Pascal  that,  in  defending  the 
Port-Royalists,  he  was  on  the  right  side,  and 
that  Heaven  was  in  his  favour. 

But  a  two  years'  ardent  controversy  proved 
too  much  for  his  highly  strung  constitution, 
already  undermined.  His  health  was  ruined 
beyond  recovery.  But,  together  with  incurable 
illness,  ineffable  happiness  had  come  to  him. 
Henceforward  Pascal  is  really  a  new-born  man. 
Hitherto  he  had  been  worldly  ;  henceforth  he 
is  free  from  all  mundane  passion.  He  had  been 
hard  and  pugnacious  ;  he  now  becomes  meek 
and  charitable.  He  had  been  restless ;  he  is 
now  serene  and  smiling.  He  is  only  hard  against 
his  own  self.  To  use  the  words  of  Professor 
Lanson,  he  "  persecuted  his  poor  body  with 
incredible  refinements  of  cruelty. ""  He  died 
in  1662,  on  August  19th,  at  thirty-nine  years  of 
age,  leaving  behind  him  the  fame  of  one  of  the 
supreme  mathematicians  and  physicists,  as  well 
as  of  one  of  the  supreme  thinkers  and  writers 
of  French  literature. 


VI 

One  must  accurately  recall  the  conditions 
under  which  Pascal's  "  Thoughts  "  were  composed 
in  order  not    to  be  misled  by  their  character. 


68         THE  FEENCH  EENASCENCE 

Although  conceived  under  the  inspiration  and 
obsession  of  one  systematic  idea,  and  of  one 
settled  plan,  the  "  Thoughts ""  are  but  the 
disjointed  notes,  disjecta  membra,  scattered 
leaflets  and  sibylline  leaves  composed  by  an 
incurable  invalid  during  the  short  luminous 
intervals  in  the  course  of  a  painful  and  lingering 
illness.  Those  leaflets,  written  with  a  trembling 
and  fever-stricken  hand,  in  almost  illegible 
writing,  were  collected  with  pious  care  by 
the  solitaries  of  Port-Eoyal,  but  they  were  of 
so  bold  and  original  a  nature,  and  contained 
so  many  hostile  references  to  the  then  all- 
powerful  Jesuits,  that  the  peace-loving  Port- 
Eoyalists  found  it  necessary  to  expurgate  all 
the  controversial  passages.  It  was  only  in  our 
own  day  that  the  French  philosopher,  Victor 
Cousin,  discovered  the  original  manuscript,  and 
conclusively  proved  that  the  edition  of  Port- 
Eoyal  of  1670  had  mutilated  and  distorted  the 
meaning  of  the  writer.  The  first  revised  edition 
based  on  the  manuscript  was  published  in  the 
forties,  and  tried  to  reproduce  the  original  plan 
and  design  of  Pascal.  But  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  attempt  was  an  impossible  one.  The 
secret  of  Pascal  was  buried  with  him,  and  all 
editions,  even  the  present  one,  are  bound  to  be 
more   or   less  arbitrary.     The  "  Thoughts ""  of 


PASCAL'S  "  THOUGHTS  "  69 

Pascal  are  not  only  one  of  the  most  impressive 
ruins  of  world  literature,  they  are  also  one  of  its 
most  perplexing  mysteries. 

VII 

It  has  long  been  assumed  that  the  "  Thoughts  '* 
of  Pascal  have  nothing  in  common  with  the 
"  Provincial  Letters/'  that  they  are  devotional 
rather  than  controversial,  and  that  the  author 
has  transported  his  demonstration  of  the  truth 
of  the  Christian  religion  into  the  sublime 
atmosphere  of  philosophical  and  mystical  con- 
templation. This  is  not  so.  The  "  Thoughts  " 
do  not  constitute  a  breach  of  continuity  ;  they 
are  a  sequel  to  the  "  Provincial  Letters.'*  They 
are  still  strongly  aggressive.  Pascal  is  still 
bitterly  anti- Jesuitic,  and,  what  is  more,  he  has 
become  more  pronouncedly  anti-Roman.  No 
doubt  he  is  emphatically  anti-Protestant,  speak- 
ing with  horror  of  the  heretics  who  reject 
auricular  confession.  But  he  speaks  with  even 
greater  horror  of  the  tyranny  of  the  Papacy. 
And  assuredly  the  philosopher  who  again  and 
and  again,  in  a  treatise  which  professes  to  be  an 
apology  of  Christianity,  goes  but  of  his  way  to 
attack  his  opponents  cannot  be  said  to  move  in 
the  serene  region  of  pure  devotion  and  mystic 
detachment. 


70        THE    FEENCH   RENASCENCE 

VIII 

We  must  leave  over  for  the  next  chapter  the 
discussion  of  Pascal's  demonstration  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  which  is  the  prime  object  and  purpose 
of  the  **  Thoughts/'  and  we  take  the  liberty  of 
referring  to  our  discussion  of  the  subject  in  our 
recent  book  on  Cardinal  Newman  (T.  and  T.  Clark, 
Edinburgh).  We  only  wish,  in  conclusion,  to 
draw  the  attention  of  the  reader  to  what  seems 
to  us  most  truly  original  and  epoch-making  in 
Pascal's  work.  Critics  have  too  much  em- 
phasized the  duality  between  the  scientist  and 
the  theologian.  I  do  not  see  that  the  contra- 
diction is  as  far-reaching  as  is  generally  supposed. 
To  Pascal,  Science  and  Religion  are  certainly 
different  in  their  object ;  they  are  not  essen- 
tially different  in  their  methods.  So  far  from 
Religion  being  opposed  to  Science,  in  Pascal's 
conception  it  becomes  itself  subject  to  scientific 
treatment.  Religion  ceases  to  be  an  abstract 
logical  system,  or  a  footnote  to  history,  or  an 
exercise  in  higher  criticism.  It  becomes  experi- 
mental. To  adopt  the  terminology  of  William 
James,  used  by  Dr.  Barry  :  "  Religion  becomes 
a  variety  of  human  experience."  The  philo- 
sophy of  Religion  is  the  interpretation  of  the 
deepest  intuitions  and  emotions  and  aspirations 


PASCAL'S  "  THOUGHTS  "  71 

of  spiritual  life.  And  Pascal  applies  all  the^ 
power  of  a  marvellous  intellect  to  the  observa- 
tion and  analysis  of  those  spiritual  phenomena. 
Nor  are  we  pressing  an  accidental  or  artificial 
analogy  when,  in  connection  with  Pascal,  we 
use  the  vocabulary  of  William  James's  famous 
book.  For  Professor  James,  like  Professor 
Boutroux  and  Bergson,  came  directly  or  in- 
directly under  the  influence  of  Pascal's  genius, 
Pascal  is  really  the  Father  of  Modern  Prag- 
matism, and  the  "  Thoughts  "  of  Pascal  may 
be  considered  as  the  first  as  well  as  the  most 
profound  contribution  to  the  new  philosophy 
of  Religion, 


PASCAL  AND  NEWMAN 


PASCAL  AND  NEWMAN 

Religious  philosophy  and  apologetic  literature 
in  France  have  been  nourished  for  the  last 
seventy-five  years  on  the  "  Thoughts  "  of  PascaL 
Since  the  famous  "  Report "  of  Victor  Cousin, 
the  most  penetrating  moralists — Vinet,  Sainte- 
Beuve,  Havet,  Sully,  Prudhomme,  Boutroux — 
have  applied  themselves  to  the  investigation  of 
the  fascinating  and  perplexing  mystery. 

'"  The  Catholic  Church,"  says  M.  Boutroux 
in  his  admirable  monograph  on  Pascal,  "  has 
been  for  a  long  time  satisfied  with  apologetic 
systems  which  are  based  mainly  on  pure  reason 
and  on  authority.  But  to-day  we  witness  inside 
the  Church  remarkable  efforts  to  seek  the  first 
reasons  for  belief,  no  more  in  the  objects  of 
faith,  but  in  man  and  in  his  nature.  According 
to  this  method,  the  first  condition  of  any  demon- 
stration of  religion  ought  to  be  the  awakening 
in  the  human  soul  of  a  desire  to  possess  God,, 
a  desire  which  indeed  constitutes  one  of  it& 
elemental  instincts,  but  which  is  oppressed  and 
repressed  by  our  sensuous  life.  The  problem 
would  be  to  disentangle  in  nature  itself  the 

74 


^  PASCAL   AND   NEWMAN  75 

claims  of  the  supernatural.  Now  it  is  partly 
under  the  influence  of  Pascal,  read  and  meditated 
in  the  simplicity  of  our  heart,  that  those  aspects 
of  Christian  apologetics  are  being  developed  *'^ 
(pp.  201,  202). 

For  the  last  ten  years  the  younger  generation 
have  turned  away  from  the  problem  of  Pascal 
and  have  given  their  allegiance  to  Cardinal 
Newman ;  and  to-day,  even  in  France,  the 
influence  of  Newman  on  the  elite  of  Roman 
Catholicism  is  certainly  stronger  and  deeper  than 
the  influence  of  Pascal.  The  same  battles 
which  once  were  fought  about  the  Pensees,  are 
being  waged  to-day  round  the  Apologia,  and  the 
University  Sermons,  and  the  Theory  of  Develop- 
ment, and  the  Grammar  of  Assent.  The  same 
minds  which  once  would  follow  the  teachings  of 
the  one  are  to-day  the  disciples  of  the  other. 
Between  those  two  great  names — the  greatest, 
perhaps,  in  the  religious  literature  of  the  modern 
world — a  comparison,  therefore,  naturally  sug- 
gests itself.  Their  parallel  destinies  correspond 
to  the  same  preoccupations,  the  same  needs  of 
the  times.  And,  therefore,  to  contrast  Pascal 
and  Newman  is  to  probe  the  very  depths  of 
the  spirit  of  the  age. 

And,  moreover,  they  belong  to  the  same 
spiritual   family.     To  compare   their   works   is 


76        THE   FRENCH   EENASCENCE 

one  of  the  best  means  of  understanding  them 
both.  We  see  their  characteristics  in  their 
true  perspective  ;  we  distinguish  those  which 
are  only  secondary  from  those  which  are  funda- 
mental ;  we  distinguish  those  which  are  rooted 
in  the  spiritual  temperament  from  those  which 
are  only  due  to  the  accidents  of  time  and  place.  ^ 

The  Diffekences 

At  first  sight  the  differences  appear  to  be  far 
more  important  than  the  resemblances.  It 
would  seem  as  if  their  surroundings,  the  age  in 
which  they  lived,  the  circumstances  of  their 
existence,  had  created  a  gulf  between  them.     - 

1.  Newman  is  a  professional  Churchman,  with 
the  narrow  outlook  of  his  class  ;  a  recluse  and 
a  monk  ;  a  theologian  writing  primarily  for 
theologians  ;  a  convert  from  Anglicanism,  de- 
voting himself  to  the  conversion  of  his  former 
co-religionists. 

Pascal  is  a  layman ;  a  great  physicist  and 
mathematician,  he  has  taken  a  leading  part  in 
the  scientific  movement  of  his  time,  and  has 
immortalized  his  name  by  epoch-making  dis- 
coveries.    A  man  of  the  world,  he  writes  for  men 

^  Madame  Lucie  Felix  Faure-Goyau  was  the  first  to  point  out 
the  analogies  between  Newman  and  Pascal,  as  she  was  one  of 
the  first  to  introduce  Newman  to  the  French  pubhc. 


PASCAL   AND   NEWMAN  77 

of  the  world.  What  interests  him  in  religion  is 
not  one  particular  sect  as  distinguished  from 
another  sect,  but  its  human  and  universal  aspect. 
And,  therefore,  he  wishes  to  found  Christianity 
on  the  bed  rock  of  the  human  soul.  He  does  not, 
like  Newman,  write  for  Anglicans  or  converts 
from  Anglicanism  ;  he  wishes  to  be  understood 
of  every  man ;  he  appeals  to  Protestants  and 
Catholics,  to  believers  and  unbelievers. 

2.  And  with  a  wider  outlook,  there  also  seems 
to  be  a  greater  intensity,  a  deeper  religious 
passion  in  Pascal  than  in  Newman.  The  con- 
version of  Pascal  was  rather  a  revolution  than  a 
gradual  evolution  ;  like  St.  Paul,  Pascal  had  his 
illumination  on  the  way  to  Damascus.  ^  The 
'*  conversion  '*  of  Newman  was  an  even,  and 
equable,  and  continuous  development  extending 
over  fifteen  years.  Newman  himself  confesses 
in  his  Apologia  that  his  reception  into  Catholicism 
did  not  produce  any  great  change  in  his  inner 
life.  And  the  change  is  not  much  more  apparent 
in  his  works.  For  he  again  makes  the  significant 
admission  that  in  the  twelve  volumes  of  his  Pro- 
testant works,  where  he  treats  of  every  question  of 


^  The  tendency  of  the  eighteenth-century  commentators  of 
Pascal  was  to  emphasize  the  "  catastrophic  "  nature  of  Pascal's 
conversion,  and  to  attribute  this  conversion  to  morbid  causes 
and  to  strange  occurrences  like  the  imaginary  accident  at  the 
Bridge  of  Neuilly. 


78        THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

the  religious  life,  he  can  hardly  trace :  so  little 
difference  is  there  between  the  Protestant  phase 
and  the  Catholic  phase  ! 

3.  Such  a  contrast  between  religious  appre- 
hension in  Newman  and  in  Pascal  suggests  some 
constitutional  opposition  in  their  temperament. 
Pascal  is  from  childhood  an  invalid,  predestined 
to  a  premature  death.  His  life,  though  brief, 
is  one  long  tragedy.  He  tells  us  that  from  his 
adolescence  he  did  not  spend  one  day  without 
acute  suffering  ;  and,  generalizing  his  own  indi- 
vidual experience,  he  proclaims  that  illness  is 
the  natural  state  of  the  true  Christian.  And 
this  physical  martrydom  is  reflected  in  the  tone 
<of  anguish  and  intense  passion  which  is  the 
keynote  of  the  Pensees.  There  is  something 
morbid,  pathological,  excessive,  unbalanced ; 
something  of  a  Christian  Hamlet  in  the  uncom- 
promising pessimism,  in  the  glorification  of 
suffering,  in  the  absence  of  the  gentler  and  more 
human  aspects  of  religion. 

At  the  age  when  Pascal  dies,  Newman  has  not 
yet  fulfilled  one  half  of  hi^  career,  and  there  still 
remain  to  him  the  fifty  most  fruitful  years  of 
his  life.  Monsieur  Roaul  Goiit  notwithstanding, 
Newman  always  retained  his  moral  health  as 
well  as  his  physical  health  ;  he  always  impresses 
us,   even  through  the  most  painful  trials  and 


PASCAL   AND   NEWMAN  79 

perplexities,  by  his  calmness,  his  serenity,  the 
equipoise  of  his  mind. 

4.  And  these  constitutional  differences  are 
expressed  in  the  very  external  appearance  of 
their  works.  The  religious  philosophy  of  Pascal 
is  embodied  in  one  little  volume  of  scattered 
thoughts,  written  down  in  the  intervals  of 
suffering,  fragments  which  the  ingenuity  of 
three  centuries  has  been  unable  to  piece  to- 
gether so  as  to  form  one  consistent  whole.  The 
philosophy  of  Newman  is  expressed  in  forty 
volumes,  written  in  the  leisure  of  fifty  years,  and 
in  the  vigour  of  almost  unbroken  health  ;  every 
argument  in  its  place,  in  battle  order  ;  nothing 
left  to  chance,  and  almost  every  one  of  those 
forty  volumes  a  masterpiece  of  composition. 

The  Resemblances 

And  yet  all  those  differences  are  not  as  essential 
as  they  seem,  and  are  only  the  result  of  the 
differences  between  their  external  circumstances. 
Widely  as  they  differ  in  their  physical  constitu- 
tion, they  have  fundamentally  the  same  intel- 
lectual and  religious  temperament. 

1.  Both  men  are  characterized  by  the  same 
universality  of  mental  gifts.  Pascal  is  equally 
supreme  in  the  three  provinces  of  intellectual 


80        THE    FEENCH   EENASCENCE 

activity  ;  a  great  scientist,  he  is  also  a  great 
philosophical  thinker  and  the  creator  of  classical 
French  prose.  Newman  is  a  preacher  and  an 
educationist,  a  journalist  and  a  controversialist, 
a  dialectician  and  a  theologian,  a  poet  and  a 
novelist.  And  both  Pascal  and  Newman  have 
placed  the  same  extraordinary  versatility  at  the 
service  of  the  one  sacred  cause,  on  the  altar  of 
religion :  Pascal  has  sacrificed  the  genius  of 
poetry. 

2.  In  both  writers  we  find  the  same  combina- 
tion of  contradictory  qualities  :  on  the  one 
hand,  a  keen  and  incisive  intellect,  which  is  never 
the  dupe  of  formulas  and  is  ever  ready  to  seize 
on  the  weak  points  of  an  opponent ;  the  clear 
perception  of  the  truths  of  exact  science — what 
Pascal  calls  V esprit  gemnetrique — joined  to  the 
esprit  de  finesse,  the  perception  of  the  finer  and 
more  delicate  truths  of  moral  science  ;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  a  mystical  imagination,  an  acute 
receptiveness  to  religious  emotion,  an  apprehen- 
sion of,  and  an  ever-present  sense  of  wonder  and 
awe  before  the  realities  of  the  invisible  world. 

3.  Both  writers  are  characterized  by  the 
same  fundamental  originality.  They  are  never 
daunted  by  received  opinions  or  prejudices. 
Even  when  they  are  extolling  habit  and  tradition 
they  depart  from  traditional  opinions. 


PASCAL   AND   NEWMAN  81 

This  originality  has  probably  been  assisted  in 
both  by  an  ignorance  truly  extraordinary  con- 
sidering the  atmosphere  in  which  they  lived. 
Never  was  there  an  intellect  which  had  in  it  less 
of  a  bookworm  than  Pascal ;  one  might  almost 
say  that  the  Bible  and  Montaigne  constituted 
the  staple  of  his  reading.  Newman  as  a  clergy- 
man and  an  Oxford  Fellow  and  tutor  had 
necessarily  a  wider  culture,  and  he  had  much 
more  of  the  historical  mind.  He  was  deeply 
read  in  the  literature  of  the  Fathers,  but  he  knew 
little  of  foreign  literature  ;  he  only  dimly  sus- 
pected the  existence  of  German  philosophy,  and 
German  theology,  and  German  Higher  Criticism, 
and  from  an  early  epoch  he  succeeded  in  re- 
pressing and  suppressing  any  intellectual 
curiosity  which  might  have  taken  him  away  from 
the  contemplation  of  the  eternal  verities. 

4.  For  indeed  ignorance  in  both  was  only  a 
result  of  their  entire  absorption  in  the  religious 
ideal  and  their  absolute  detachment  from  mun- 
dane things.  Pascal  never  misses  an  oppor- 
tunity of  expressing  his  contempt  for  the 
philosophy  of  Descartes.  Even  his  own  mag- 
nificent discoveries  in  physical  science  and  in 
mathematics  came  to  be  regarded  only  as  a 
passing  episode. 

No  doubt  in  Newman's  life  we  do  not  witness 


82        THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

the  same  painful  experience  of  self-mutilation, 
and  of  a  mighty  genius  committing  suicide  ; 
but  Newman  also,  as  time  went  on,  retired  more 
and  more  from  the  busy  scenes  of  the  outside 
world,  and  led  the  contemplative  life  of  the 
solitary  monk,  and  he  was  only  saved  from 
the  excesses  of  asceticism  by  his  interest  in 
education,  and  his  duties  as  the  Superior  of 
the  Birmingham  Oratory. 

5.  Both  writers  created  a  new  Christian 
"  Apologia  ''  based  on  a  new  conception  of  the 
religious  phenomenon  and  on  a  new  philosophy 
of  faith.  Both,  warned  and  terrified  by  the 
demands  of  their  own  imperious  intellectual  in- 
stincts, used  all  the  resources  of  a  mighty  mind 
to  combat  religious  intellectualism.  Religion  is 
a  disposition  of  the  soul,  a  fact  of  experience. 
Religious  truth  is  not  established  by  the  ratio- 
cinative  faculties,  it  is  proved  and  realized  by 
our  lives.  Faith  is  the  supreme  blossom  of 
our  moral  activity.  The  famous  phrase  in  the 
Mystery  of  Jesus,  "  A  mesure  que  tu  expieras  tes 
peches,  tu  les  comprendras,'"  and  those  other 
words,  even  more  characteristic,  "  Cella  vous 
fera  croire  et  vous  abetira,"'  indicating  the  duty 
of  repressing  the  intellect,  give  the  keynote  .of 
the  religious  philosophy  of  Newman  and  Pascal. 

6.  Precisely  because  Pascal  and  Newman  base 


PASCAL   AND   NEWMAN  83 

the  truths  of  religion  on  the  analysis  and  inter- 
pretation of  our  psychological  experiences,  their 
tendency  is  to  insist  on  the  subjective  and  indi- 
vidual aspect  rather  than  on  the  ecclesiastical 
or  political  and  social  aspect.  Whatever  may 
be  the  theoretical  importance  which  both  attach 
to  the  authority  of  the  Church  and  to  the  ministry 
of  the  priest,  practically  their  conception  of 
religion  is  mainly  individualistic,  one  might 
almost  say  egotistic.  As  in  the  Imitation  of 
Christ,  religion  is  a  mystical  dialogue  between 
God  and  the  soul.  The  Church  may  provide  the 
superstructure,  conscience  alone  provides  the 
foundations.  In  our  intercourse  with  God  we 
are  alone,  we  live  alone,  and  we  die  alone.  In 
the  Apologia  Newman  recurs  to  the  words  of 
Pascal,  *'  Nous  mourrons  seuls."  Neither 
Pascal  nor  Newman  ever  emphasizes  the  media- 
tion of  the  priest ;  the  only  mediator  for  Pascal 
is  Christ.  And  for  Newman  there  are  only  two 
realities  :  God  and  himself. 

7.  Both  writers  have  adopted,  in  the  exposi- 
tion of  these  extreme  views,  the  same  extreme, 
aggressive  attitude.  Both  are  polemical  writers. 
We  must  not  be  deceived  by  the  conciliatory 
form,  the  courteous  manner,  the  concessions  for 
argument's  sake.  This  is  a  mere  matter  of  tact 
and  policy.    At  heart  Newman  is  as  uncom- 


84        THE   FEENCH   EENASCENCE 

promising  as  Pascal.  He  is  as  little  content  to 
remain  on  his  defence  or  to  remain  sitting  "  on 
the  fence/'  he  is  as  ready  to  take  the  offensive 
and  to  carry  warfare  into  the  camp  of  the  enemy  ; 
he  uses  as  intemperate  language. 

8.  The  aggressiveness  and  audacity  and 
originality  of  both  have  equally  terrified  their 
co-religionists,  and  have  been  equally  misunder- 
stood. Both  have  been  accused  of  scepticism, 
of  taking  a  leap  in  the  dark,  of  having  taken 
counsel  from  despair.  In  both  cases  the  accusa- 
tion is  almost  equally  absurd.  No  doubt  they 
both  delight  to  emphasize  the  uncertainties  of 
faith,  to  accumulate  the  difficulties  and  shadows 
which  hide  from  our  view  the  Deus  absconditus- 
But  in  both  cases  the  spirit  and  inspiration  are 
the  same  ;  there  must  be  something  heroic  and 
generous  in  our  dealings  with  God.  We  must 
not  attempt  to  drive  a  hard  bargain.  Faith 
must  be  a  wager,  a  risk,  says  Pascal.^ 
Faith  has  its  ventures,  says  Newman.  ^  And  the 
more  hazardous  the  risks,  the  more  heroic  the 
venture,  the  greater  will  be  our  deserts. 

Notwithstanding  the  absurdity  of  the 
accusation  of  scepticism,  the  fact  remains  that 

^  See  in  Pascal's  "  Thoughts  "  (ed.  Brunschwigg,  p.  437)  the 
characteristic  pages  on  the  regie  du  pari  :  II  se  joue  un  jeu,  a 
I'extremite  de  cette  distance  infinie,  ou  il  arrivera  croix  ou  pile 
.  .  .  Out:  mais  il  faut  parler. 

'  Cf .  the  sermon  on  the  Ventures  of  Faith. 


PASCAL   AND   NEWMAN  85 

neither  Pascal  nor  Newman  can  be  regarded, 
or  have  been  regarded,  as  **  safe  '*  apologists 
from  the  point  of  view  of  orthodoxy.  Both 
have  fought  Protestantism  as  a  system  of 
religion,  yet  both  are  Protestant  in  spirit  be- 
cause they  are  ever  ready  to  "  protest ''  in  the 
name  of  conscience.  Is  it  necessary  to  point 
out  the  numberless  passages  in  Newman's  works 
on  the  supremacy  of  the  religious  conscience  ? — 
for  instance,  the  famous  passage  in  the  Letter 
to  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  on  the  hypothetical 
toast  to  conscience  first,  to  the  pope  afterwards  ? 
Or  the  equally  significant  Letter  to  Bishop 
UUathorne  denouncing  an  insolent  faction  of 
Homanists  ?  But  the  Protestant  spirit  of  Pascal 
is  no  less  striking,  though  much  less  known. 
We  are  to-day  in  a  better  position  than  were 
his  contemporaries  to  interpret  the  hidden 
meaning  of  Pascal,  as  the  strongest  passages 
had  been  suppressed  by  the  Port  Royalists. 
Yet  the  Port  Royalists  were  not  ultramontanes. 
But  even  they  could  not  publish  such  formid- 
able "  protests  ''  as  the  following  : — 

"  The  pope  hates  and  fears  learned  men, 
because  they  are  not  submitted  to  him  by  a 
vow."i 

"  Each  time   the   Jesuits   shall   surprise  the 

^  "  Le  pape  halt  et  craint  lea  savants,  qui  ne  lui  sont  pas  soumis 
par  voeu." 


86         THE  FEENCH  RENASCENCE 

confidence  of  the  pope,  they  will  cause  the  whole 
of  Christendom  to  commit  perjury/'^ 

**  If  the  Port  Royalists  keep  silence  (from 
cowardice)  the  stones  will  speak/' ^ 

"  It  is  better  to  obey  God  than  man."^ 

*'  If  my  letters  are  condemned  in  Rome,  what 
I  condemn  in  them  shall  be  condemned  in 
heaven :  Ad  tuum,  Bomine  Jesu,  tribunal 
appelo."* 

**  Am  I  alone  against  thirty  thousand  ?  Not 
at  all.  You  may  keep  on  your  side  the  court 
and  the  impostors.  I  have  the  truth  on  my 
side.  She  is  my  whole  strength  ;  if  I  lose  her, 
I  am  lost.  Neither  accusations  nor  persecutions 
will  be  wanting.  But  I  have  the  truth,  and 
we  shall  see  who  will  win  the  day.^ 

10.  What  still  further  strengthens  the  im- 
pression of  heterodoxy  is  that  in  both  Pascal  and 
Newman  we  find  a  strong  leaven  of  Calvinism. 
Both  have  a  horror  of  an  easy  religion ;  both 
emphasize   the   stern  aspects   of   Christianity ; 

^  ••  Toutes  les  fois  que  les  Jesuites  surprendont  le  paper,  on 
rendra  toute  la  chr6tient6  parjure." 

*  "  Si  ceux  la  se  taisent,  les  pierres  parleront." 

'  "  II  est  meilleur  d'ob^ir  a  Dieu,  qu'aux  hommes." 

*  "  Si  mes  lettres  sont  condamn^es  a  Rome,  ce  que  j'y  condame 
est  condamn6  dans  le  ciel  :  Ad  tuum,  Domine  Jesu,  tribunal 
appelo." 

"  "  Je  suis  seul  centre  trente  mille  ?  Point.  Gardez,  vous 
le  cour,  vous  I'imposture  ;  moi  la  v6rit6  ;  c'est  ma  force  ;  si  je 
la  perds,  je  suis  perdu.  Je  ne  manquerai  pas  d' accusations  et  de 
persecutions.     Mais  j'ai  la  v6rit6,  et  nous  verrons  qui  I'emportera." 


PASCAL  AND  NEWMAN  87 

both  warn  us  against  taking  the  smooth  path. 
The  Port  Royalists,  of  whom  Pascal  is  the 
advocate,  are  the  Calvinists  of  the  Gallican 
Church.  And  Newman  himself,  of  Huguenot 
origin  and  educated  by  a  Calvinist  mother,  has 
never  shaken  ofi  the  influences  of  his  early 
training. 

11.  If  our  parallelism  has  not  been  strained  to 
satisfy  a  preconceived  theory,  we  ought  to  find 
all  those  striking  analogies  reflected  both  in  the 
style  of  the  two  writers  and  in  the  influence 
which  they  have  exerted — because  in  a  great 
writer  style  is  but  the  expression  of  the  inmost 
personality,  and  because  influence  is  but  the 
interpretation  of  a  thinker  by  posterity. 

Now  the  style  of  Pascal  and  Newman  present 
the  most  characteristic  resemblances :  both 
combine  the  intellectual  qualities  with  the 
emotional,  irony  with  pathos  ;  both  are  abstract 
and  "  spiritual  '* ;  both  have  balance  and 
rh3rthm,  and  they  are  musical  rather  than 
imaginative.  Pascal's  style  is  probably  more 
impressive  by  its  greater  brevity  and  lapidarity. 
Both  are  perfectly  simple  and  chastened — 
neither  ever  depends  for  effect  on  rhetoric ; 
both  are  not  only  inimitable,  but  they  evade 
literary  analysis  because  they  owe  nothing  to 
artifice.    And  yet  both  owe  a  great  deal  to  art. 


88         THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

Whilst  producing  the  impression  of  spontaneity 
and  inevitableness,  they  are  yet  the  result  of 
infinite  labour.  Summa  ars  est  celare  artem  / 
We  know  from  Newman's  confession  the  agonies 
he  went  through  in  the  process  of  writing.  We 
know  that  Pascal  re-wrote  sixteen  times  some 
of  his  ''  Provincial  Letters/'  and  we  can  point 
to  the  passage  at  the  beginning  of  one  of  the 
''  Provinciales ''  where  he  apologizes  for  the 
length  of  the  letter,  because  he  has  not  had  time 
to  make  it  shorter. 

12.  And  the  influence  of  both  writers  proves 
beyond  contest  that  several  generations  instinc- 
tively and  independently  have  read  the  same 
meaning  into  their  works.  Both  have  turned 
religious  thought  into  new  and  deeper  channels  ; 
they  have  raised  the  moral  temperature  of  those 
who  have  come  under  their  spell.  Consciously 
they  have  no  doubt  worked  in  the  cause  of 
Roman  Catholicism  in  the  strict  sense  of  the 
word,  but  their  influence  has  exceeded  the  limits 
of  their  Church ;  they  have  been,  and  continue 
to  be,  the  delight  alike  of  Catholics  and  Protes- 
tants, of  believers  and  sceptics,  and  thus  uncon- 
sciously and  above  all  they  have  worked  in  the 
cause  of  that  wider  Catholicism  which  includes 
all  those  who  believe  in  the  ''  Kingdom  of  God," 
and  who  strive  to  realize  it  in  their  lives  and 
hearts. 


MADAME  DE  MAINTENON 


MADAME   DE   MAINTENON 


There  are  nations  which  are  best  judged  by 
their  men,  nations  in  which  it  is  the  masculine 
qualities — strength  of  character,  will  power, 
reticence,  and  reserve — which  predominate, 
where  men  may  be  considered  as,  physically 
and  morally,  the  representative  types  of  the  race. 
In  that  sense  I  would  call  the  English  people, 
and  the  Teutonic  peoples  generally,  essentially 
masculine  nations. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  nations  which 
are  best  judged  by  their  women,  in  which  the 
feminine  qualities  of  grace  and  charm,  of  wit, 
of  exuberance  and  emotion,  are  the  salient  traits. 
In  that  limited  sense  I  would  call  the  French 
nation  predominantly  a  feminine  people. 
Certainly  in  no  other  country  have  women 
played  a  more  important  part.  From  the  be- 
ginnings of  French  history,  from  the  days  of 
the  Druid  priestesses  in  the  forests  of  Gaul, 

90 


MADAME  DE  MAINTENON  91 

from  the  days  of  the  women  saints  like  Ste. 
Genevieve,  protecting  the  population  against 
the  invading  hosts  of  Attila,  French  women  have 
been  supreme.  The  ideal  of  woman  is  the 
inspiration  of  French  chivalry.  Again  and  again 
in  mediaeval  history  women  appear  in  turn  to 
save  the  French  people,  like  Blanche  of  Castille 
and  Joan  of  Arc,  or  to  lead  the  country  to  its 
doom,  like  Isabeau  de  Baviere.  So  powerful 
and  so  dangerous  was  the  influence  of  women 
felt  to  be  that  the  French  were  compelled  to 
adopt  that  peculiar  Salic  law  (the  origin  of  the 
Hundred  Years'  War),  according  to  which  no 
woman  was  allowed  to  ascend  the  throne.  But 
no  Salic  law  could  prevent  women  from  asserting 
their  power  and  personality  either  as  the  wives, 
or  more  frequently  as  the  mistresses,  of  French 
rulers.  Diane  de  Poitiers  and  Catherine  de 
Medici  in  the  sixteenth  century ;  Marie  de 
Medici,  Anne  of  Austria,  Madame  de  Montespan 
in  the  seventeenth  ;  Madame  de  Pompadour 
and  Madame  du  Barry  in  the  eighteenth,  are 
only  a  few  instances  of  women  playing  a  notable 
part  in  French  politics.  During  the  Great 
Revolution  Madame  Roland  was  the  one  pro- 
minent statesman  of  the  Girondist  party.  During 
the  Reign  of  Terror  the  dagger  of  a  girl  of  twenty- 
five  ended  the  sinister  career  of  Marat.     Marie 


92         THE  FRENCH  EENASCENCE 

Antoinette  was  the  evil  genius  of  Louis  XVI, 
the  ex-Empress  Eugenie  was  the  evil  genius  of 
Napoleon  III. 

II 

Of  all  the  brilliant  women  who  filled  the  stage 
of  French  history  there  is  perhaps  no  more 
arresting  figure,  none  more  captivating,  than 
Fran9oise  d'Aubigne,  Marquise  de  Maintenon. 
Born  in  a  prison,  the  daughter  of  a  convict, 
finding  herself  at  seventeen  years  of  age  the 
girl-wife  of  an  old  cripple  mountebank  and 
society  jester,  later  a  humble  governess  of  the 
bastard  children  of  Royalty,  she  lived  to  be, 
in  an  age  of  mistresses  and  courtesans,  the 
legitimate  wife  of  the  proudest  King  in  Christen- 
dom ;  and,  becoming  thus,  a  widow  of  forty- 
five,  the  uncrowned  Queen  of  Louis  XIV,  she 
held  captive  for  thirty  years  the  most  fickle  of 
husbands  by  the  mere  magnetism  of  her  strong 
personality.  Into  a  profligate  court,  addicted 
to  gallantry  and  gambling,  she  breathed  anew 
spirit.  She  built  model  schools  and  institutions 
for  the  children  of  the  impoverished  nobility ; 
she  became  one  of  the  most  original  pioneers  in 
the  education  of  women.  The  granddaughter 
of  Agrippa  d'Aubigne,  one  of  the  heroes  of 
.Protestantism,    she    became    a    champion    of 


MADAME  DE  MAINTENON  95 

Catholic  orthodoxy,  a  Mother  of  the  Church, 
and  her  name  has  passed  down  to  posterity, 
very  unjustly,  as  the  persecutor  of  the  Hugue- 
nots, and  as  being  mainly  responsible  for  the 
revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes.  Surely  in 
all  modern  history  there  is  no  character  whose 
biography  contains  in  greater  abundance  the 
elements  of  romance,  whose  chequered  life-story 
is  richer  in  dramatic  contrasts. 


Ill 

Madame  de  Maintenon  found  in  her  cradle  a 
double  inheritance  of  glory  and  infamy.  Her 
grandfather,  Theodore  Agrippa  d'Aubigne,  a 
fanatic  Calvinist,  but  far  from  being  a  Puritan  in 
his  conduct,  a  soldier  of  fortune,  and  boon  com- 
panion of  Henry  IV  of  Navarre,  stands  out  as 
one  of  the  most  original  characters  of  a  heroic 
age,  and  as  the  inspired  poet  of  "  Les  Tragiques,'* 
one  of  the  immortal  masterpieces  of  French 
letters.  Her  father.  Constant  d'Aubigne,  was 
an  inveterate  scoundrel,  a  gambler,  and  a 
debauchee.  He  murdered  his  faithless  wife  and 
her  lover  ;  he  denounced  his  father's  intrigues 
with  the  English  ;  he  betrayed  one  political  party 
to  the  other,  and  was  ultimately  shut  up  in  the 
King's  prison  at  Bordeaux.     Whilst  in  gaol  he 


94        THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

seduced,  at  forty-seven  years  of  age,  the  sixteen- 
year-old  daughter  of  the  governor.  Released 
from  prison,  he  joined  a  band  of  forgers,  and  was 
sentenced  to  penal  servitude  for  life.  It  was  in 
the  prison  of  Niort  that  the  future  Madame  de 
Maintenon  was  born  in  1635,  and  that  she  was 
baptized  in  the  Catholic  religion — the  religion  of 
her  mother.  The  child  was  entrusted  to  a  kind 
aunt,  Madame  de  Villette,  who  brought  her  up  in 
the  Calvinist  faith. 

In  1642  Constant  d'Aubigne  was  liberated  and 
offered  a  post  in  the  French  Antilles,  and  little 
Fran9oise  spent  several  years  of  her  childhood 
under  tropical  skies.  Her  mother  was  a  strict 
disciplinarian,  and  Madame  de  Maintenon  used 
to  tell  in  later  days  that  she  did  not  remember 
her  parent  kissing  her  on  more  than  two 
occasions.  Is  it  this  absence  of  tenderness 
which  explains  that  touch  of  hardness  which 
is  noticeable  in  all  the  utterances  of  our  heroine, 
and  is  it  for  the  same  reason  that  Madame  de 
Maintenon  relies  so  little  on  the  cultivation  of  the 
affections  in  the  education  of  girls  ? 

IV 

At  the  age  of  twelve,  in  1647,  on  the  death  of 
her  father,  Frangoise  d'Aubigne  was  taken  back 
to  France.     On  their  return  the  family  were 


MADAME   DE   MAINTENON  95 

reduced  to  such  distress  that  for  some  time  they 
were    dependent    on    public    charity,    and    the 
mother  had  to  beg  her  food  at  the  door  of  the 
Jesuit  College  of  La  Kochelle.     Once  more  the 
kind   Calvinist   aunt    offered   to   take   care    of 
Fran9oise,  but  a  Catholic  relative,  Madame  de 
Neuillant,  interfered,  and  took  her  away  from 
the  evil  influence  of  the  heretic.     The  Catholic 
relative  turned  out  to  be  a  miser,  and  the  child 
had  to  spend  the  best  part  of  her  time  watching 
the  geese  and  performing  other  menial  services. 
But  if  Madame  de  Neuillant  did  not  look   after 
the  physical  welfare  of  her  charge,   she  took 
every  means  to  secure  her  conversion,  resorting 
even  to  violence.     She  failed,  and  the  girl  was 
entrusted  to  the  Ursuline  nuns  of  the  Faubourg 
St.  Jacques.     The  nuns  were  equally  convinced 
that  the  kingdom  of  God  could  only  be  gained 
by  brutal  treatment.     There  is  a  letter  extant, 
the  first  of  a  voluminous  correspondence  spread 
over  seventy-five  years,  testifying  to  the  perse- 
cution  which   she    had   to    endure.     Fran9oise 
writes  to  her  Calvinist  aunt  to  implore  her  pro- 
tection, and  supplicating  her  to  use  her  credit 
to  save  her  from  this  convent,  where  life  was 
worse  than  death  :    "  Ah,  my  Lady  and  Aunt, 
you  cannot  imagine  the  Hell  which  this  house, 
so  called  *  of  God,"  is  to  me,  and  the  ill  treatment 


96         THE  FEENCH  EENASCENCE 

and  cruelty  of  those  who  have  been  made  the 
guardian  of  my  body,  but  not  of  my  soul,  because 
in  that  they  shall  not  succeed.  Rivette  will  tell 
you  at  length  my  anguish  and  suffering,  as 
she  is  the  only  person  here  whom  I  can  trust. 
I  beseech  you  once  more,  my  Lady  and  Aunt,  to 
have  pity  on  the  daughter  of  your  brother  and 
on  your  humble  servant.'' 

Her  aunt  was  powerless  to  intervene,  and  the 
child  was  left  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  Catholic 
sisters.  As  they  saw  that  violence  could  not 
prevail  over  the  strong  character  of  Fran9oisey 
they  eventually  adopted  gentler  methods,  which 
were  ultimately  successful.  rran9oise  d'Aubigne 
renounced  the  Protestant  heresy  in  1649. 

Thirty-five  years  later,  the  Royal  husband  of 
Madame  de  Maintenon  employed  on  a  larger 
scale  those  ruthless  methods  which  had  so 
signally  failed  in  her  youth.  How  shall  we 
explain  that  the  uncrowned  Queen  of  France  so 
entirely  forgot  the  bitter  experiences  of  her 
childhood,  and  that  she  did  not  use  her  all- 
powerful  influence  to  cause  counsels  of  modera- 
tion to  prevail  ? 


Shortly  after  her  conversion  the  girl  was  intro- 
duced to  Scarron,  the  greatest  burlesque  poet  of 


MADAME   DE   MAINTENON  97 

the  age.  Scarron,  a  cleric  in  minor  orders,  and. 
provided  in  his  youth  with  many  fat  livings,  had 
been  struck  at  the  age  of  twenty-eight  with, 
general  paralysis.  But  even  in  illness  his  in- 
domitable spirit  did  not  desert  him.  Even  as 
Cervantes  wrote  "  Don  Quixote  ''  in  prison,  the 
lame  poet  from  his  couch  poured  out  a  con- 
tinuous stream  of  burlesque  masterpieces,  and 
through  the  brilliance  of  his  conversation  and 
his  irrepressible  wit  he  gathered  round  him  the 
most  select  society  of  Paris. 

We  know  little  about  the  early  relations  of 
Scarron  to  Fran9oise  d'Aubigne.  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  in  later  days,  was,  naturally,  very 
reticent  on  this  period  of  her  life.  All  we  know 
is  that  the  cripple  fell  in  love,  that  with  charac- 
teristic generosity  he  offered  to  provide  a  dowry 
to  enable  her  to  enter  a  convent,  that  she  refused ^ 
that  he  offered  to  marry  her,  that  she  accepted, 
and  that  she  married,  before  she  was  seventeen, 
a  helpless  invalid  who  was  three  times  her  age. 
In  such  a  marriage  there  could  be  no  question  of 
love.  It  was  a  "  marriage  de  raison."'  Madame 
Scarron  was  at  seventeen  what  she  remained  all 
through  life,  sensible,  practical,  seeking  happi- 
ness in  renunciation.  And  she  partly  found 
happiness.  At  least  this  monstrous  union  of  an 
old  cripple  with  a  beautiful  girl  of  seventeen  had 


98        THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

its  compensations.  If  the  young  wife  was  the 
faithful  nurse  of  the  husband,  the  husband  was 
an  indefatigable  teacher  of  the  wife.  He  taught 
her  Italian,  Spanish,  and  Latin.  He  taught 
her  the  art  of  conversation,  in  which  she  was  to 
be  supreme.  And  as  he  was  a  fellow  of  infinite 
wit,  he  continued  to  attract  the  leaders  of  Parisian 
society  who  were  to  befriend  Madame  Scarron 
in  later  life.  Altogether  it  is  this  strange 
marriage  which  laid  the  foundation  of  her  pro- 
digious fortune. 

The  poet  Scarron  died  in  1660,  and  at  twenty- 
five  years  of  age  his  widow  was  left  almost 
penniless.  But  she  had  made  powerful  friends, 
and  through  their  influence  she  received  a 
pension  of  2,000  livres,  which  was  an  ample 
provision  for  her  modest  needs. 

The  greatest  memoir- writer,  St.  Simon,  and 
the  most  entertaining  letter-writer  of  the  age, 
the  Duchess  of  Orleans,  who  both  pursued 
Madame  de  Maintenon  with  an  undying  hatred, 
inform  us  that  during  her  widowhood  Madame 
Scarron  accepted  the  favours  of  several  noblemen, 
notably  of  the  Marquis  de  Villarceaux.  The 
accusations  of  St.  Simon  have  been  repeated  and 
accepted  by  most  historians,  but  they  have 
been  proved  to-day  to  be  entirely  devoid  of 
foundation.  They  are  not  supported  by  any 
contemporary    witness    and    they    are    refuted 


MADAME   DE   MAINTENON        99 

by  such  unexceptionable  witnesses  as  Madame 
de  Sevigne  and  the  Chevalier  de  Mere.  "  We 
are  having  supper  every  night  with  Madame 
Scarron,"  says  Madame  de  Sevigne.  "  She  has 
a  delightful  wit,  and  her  intellect  is  marvellously 
reliable.  It  is  a  delight  to  hear  her  argue,  and 
she  is  fascinating  company.^' 

But,  apart  from  such  irrefutable  testimony, 
the  slanders  of  St.  Simon  are  intrinsically  im- 
probable. It  is  inconceivable  that  a  young 
woman  of  doubtful  reputation  should  have  been 
chosen  to  educate  the  children  of  Louis  XIV, 
nor  are  St.  Simon's  statements  reconcilable  with 
what  we  know  of  Madame  Scarron's  character. 
She  did  not  pretend  to  be  a  saint,  but  all  through 
life  she  had  a  rigid  sense  of  honour.  She  sought 
esteem  even  more  than  admiration.  In  later 
years  she  dilated  to  her  pupils  on  this  craving  for 
worldly  approval — the  mainspring  of  her  moral 
life  :  "I  wish  I  had  done  for  God  what  I  have 
done  for  the  world,  in  order  to  preserve  my  re- 
putation. Yet  this  love  of  worldly  esteem,  even 
though  it  is  mixed  up  with  pride  and  vanity,  and 
although  it  must  have  the  corrective  of  religious 
feeling,  is  nevertheless  very  useful  to  girls.  It 
helps  to  preserve  them  from  the  disorders  of 
passion,  and  for  t  hair  reason  I  would  never  advise 
any  educator  to  suppress  it  in  the  heart  of 
youth." 


100      THE    FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

VI 

In  1669  the  decisive  event  of  Madame  Scarron's 
life  took  place.  She  was  selected  as  the  governess 
of  the  illegitimate  children  of  Louis  XIV  and 
Madame  de  Montespan.  The  reigning  favourite 
had  made  Madame  Scarron's  acquaintance  at 
the  house  of  a  common  friend,  Marshal  d'Albret, 
and  had  learned  to  appreciate  her  sterling  virtues 
and  her  peculiar  qualifications  for  the  delicate 
functions  with  which  she  was  now  to  be  entrusted. 
Madame  Scarron  was  eminently  tactful  and 
discreet,  and  tact  and  discretion  were  all  the 
more  necessary  as  the  children  of  Madame  de 
Montespan  had  to  be  brought  up  in  the  utmost 
secrecy.  Louis  XIV  would  probably  not  have 
minded  challenging  public  opinion,  but  he  did 
not  dare  to  defy  the  Church  and  publicly  to 
acknowledge  the  ofispring  of  his  amours.  A 
small  mansion  was  taken  for  Madame  Scarron  in 
a  secluded  suburb  of  Paris,  and  there  for  years 
she  led  a  double  life,  and  even  her  intimate 
friends  had  no  suspicion  of  the  responsible  post 
to  which  she  had  been  called. 

And  not  only  was  Madame  Scarron  tactful 
and  discreet ;  she  had  the  maternal  instinct. 
She  who  was  destined  never  to  have  any  children 
of  her  own  passionately  loved  children,  if  the 


MADAME   DE   MAINTENON      "lOl 

word  passion  may  fittingly  be  applied  to  a 
personality  so  entirely  self-possessed.  She  was 
a  born  governess  and  an  ideal  nurse.  She  had 
spent  eight  years  of  her  youth  in  tending  a 
middle-aged  cripple.  She  was  to  spend  the 
next  ten  years  in  training  the  bastard  little 
princes.  She  was  to  spend  thirty  years  more  in 
attending  the  old  King.  And  in  the  days  of  her 
favour  any  leisure  which  was  left  her  after  her 
onerous  duties  at  Court  she  devoted,  at  St.  Cyr, 
to  the  education  of  the  daughters  of  indigent 
noblemen.  When  the  courtiers  of  Versailles 
thought  her  mainly  bent  on  advancing  her  own 
fortune  and  those  of  her  relatives  and  friends, 
she  was  busy  in  attending  to  the  most  minute 
details  of  management  of  the  great  school  she  had 
founded. 


VII 

At  the  beginning  Madame  Scarron  felt  duly 
grateful  for  the  patronage  of  the  all-powerful 
favourite,  but  soon  difiiculties  began  to  arise. 
Madame  de  Montespan  was  an  unwise  mother, 
in  turn  unreasonably  hard  and  fondly  indulgent, 
and  her  domineering  and  wilful  temper  made 
the  task  of  the  governess  both  more  irksome  and 


,«il    a"^  %*  )0 


102'   the'MMch  renascence 

more  difficult.  The  difficulties  increased  when 
Madame  de  Montespan  began  to  notice  that  the 
King  was  paying  marked  attention  to  the  fas- 
cinating widow.  Distrust  and  jealousy  were 
added  to  caprice  and  incompatibility  of  character. 
Violent  scenes  took  place  almost  every  day, 
echoes  of  which  are  to  be  found  even  in  Madame 
de  Sevigne.  The  position  of  Madame  Scarron 
was  becoming  untenable. 

When  and  how  did  the  estrangement  begin  ? 
When  did  Madame  de  Maintenon  begin  to 
attract  the  attention  of  the  King  ?  And  was 
it  the  King  or  the  widow  who  made  the 
first  advances  ?  If  we  are  to  believe  St.  Simon, 
at  first  Madame  Scarron  rather  repelled  than 
attracted  Louis  XIV  by  her  austerity  and  her 
lack  of  humour,  and  the  King  repeatedly  told 
his  mistress  to  dismiss  the  governess.  He 
obstinately  refused  to  reward  her  for  her  services, 
and  it  was  only  after  the  most  persistent  demands 
on  the  part  of  Madame  de  Montespan  that  he 
made  her  a  grant  of  250,000  livres  and  gave  her 
the  means  of  buying  the  estate  which  was  to 
transform  Madame  Scarron  into  the  Marchioness 
de  Maintenon. 

It  is  a  story  difficult  to  believe,  and  it  is  almost 
as  difficult  not  to  believe  it.  If  it  is  not  true, 
St.  Simon  becomes  a  deliberate  liar,  and  we 


MADAME  DE  MAINTENON         10? 

must  discard  the  greatest  Memoirs  of  all  times 
as  a  tissue  of  falsehood.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
the  story  is  true,  it  seems  as  if  we  ought  entirely 
to  change  our  estimate  of  Madame  Scarron's 
character.  For  she  would  have  repaid  Madame 
de  Montespan's  generosity  with  the  basest  in- 
gratitude. She  would  have  deliberately  planned 
from  the  first  to  oust  a  kind  friend  and  pro- 
tectress, to  whom  she  owed  everything,  from 
the  affections  of  the  King. 

But  we  need  be  in  no  hurry  either  to  accuse 
Madame  Scarron  of  base  ingratitude  or  to  accuse 
St.  Simon  of  conscious  falsity.  Madame  de 
Montespan  may  have  been  genuinely  friendly 
at  first,  but  she  may  have  undone  all  her  acts 
of  kindness  by  her  uncontrollable  outbursts. 
Madame  Scarron  may  have  been  sincerely  grate- 
ful at  first,  but  she  may  have  found  it  impossible 
to  submit  to  the  caprices  of  an  imperious  tyrant. 
And  she  may  have  only  discovered  imperceptibly 
her  growing  influence  with  the  King,  and,  having 
once  discovered  her  power,  she  would  have  been 
more  or  less  than  human  if  she  had  allowed  her 
former  feelings  for  Madame  de  Montespan  to 
stand  in  the  way.  Her  position  at  Court  was 
already  very  strong  when,  in  1673,  Louis  XIV 
publicly  acknowledged  his  children,  and  when 
their  nurse  became  officially  the  ''  gouvernante  " 


104      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

of  the  Royal  princes.  Her  position  was  further 
strengthened  when  she  bought  the  estate  and 
received  the  title  of  Maintenon.  Nor  need  we 
attribute  any  special  magnanimity  to  Madame 
de  Montespan  when  she  forced  the  claims  of 
Madame  Scarron  on  her  lover.  She  may  have 
scented  the  danger  and  dreaded  a  possible  rival, 
and  she  may  have  wanted  to  get  Madame  Scarron 
out  of  the  way.  She  may  have  hoped  that, 
once  the  governess  were  in  a  position  to 
leave,  she  might  be  tempted  to  resign  an 
uncongenial  post.  One  thing  is  certain,  Madame 
de  Maintenon  did  not  fulfil  the  expectations  of 
the  favourite.  She  had  often  threatened  to 
leave,  but  thought  no  more  of  carrying  out  her 
threat.  Henceforth,  with  an  official  position, 
with  a  title  and  a  competence,  Madame  de 
Maintenon  remained.  She  submitted  to  the 
ill-will  of  the  favourite,  being  secure  of  the  good- 
will of  the  King.  She  knew  that  her  day  was 
coming. 

VIII 

For  as  she  was  gaining  ground,  Madame  de 
Montespan  was  losing.  She  indulged  more  and 
more  her  ungovernable  temper.  She  was  making 
scenes  not  only  with  Madame  Scarron,  but  with 


MADAME  DE  MAINTENON         105 

her  Royal  lover.  She  became  more  and  more 
extravagant.  In  a  few  hours  she  would  squander 
s,  fortune  at  the  gaming  table.  She  presumed 
too  much  on  her  waning  charms,  nor  did  she 
realize  that  her  pride  had  made  her  countless 
enemies  at  Court,  who  were  interested  in  bring- 
ing about  an  estrangement.  About  1679  the 
estrangement  must  have  been  nearly  complete, 
for  about  this  time  we  find  two  other  rivals  in 
iavour,  Madame  de  Fontanges  and  the  Princesse 
de  Soubise,  and  we  find  Madame  de  Montespan 
making  desperate  efforts  and  resorting  to 
•criminal  means  and  to  "Black  Magic"'  to 
regain  the  affections  of  her  fickle  lover. 

Those  were  the  golden  days  of  palmists  and 
•clairvoyants.  Those  also  were  the  days  of  pro- 
fessional poisoners.  Madame  de  Montespan 
believed  in  love  philtres  and  love  powders.  She 
believed  in  witchcraft  and  in  the  Black  Mass, 
and,  in  order  to  get  a  rival  out  of  the  way,  she 
did  not  hesitate  to  call  in  the  services  of  an 
infamous  criminal,  la  Voisin.  In  1680  what  is 
probably  the  greatest  poisoning  trial  of  all  times 
staggered  the  conscience  of  France.  A  suc- 
•cession  of  heinous  and  unmentionable  crimes 
were  brought  to  light,  and  it  was  revealed  that 
the  favourite  of  the  King  had  given  her  confidence 
.to  the  woman  la  Voisin,  and  had  made  free  with 


106       THE  FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

the  name  of  the  King.  The  affair  was  hushed  up^ 
but  any  lingering  affection  which  Louis  XIV 
might  still  have  felt  for  his  mistress  vanished^ 
The  spell  of  Madame  de  Montespan  was  broken.. 


IX 

In  1681  the  doom  of  Madame  de  Montespan 
was  sealed,  and  in  1683  the  Queen  died.  Hence- 
forth the  place  was  free  for  the  new  favourite. 
Six  months  after  the  Queen's  death  Madame  de 
Maintenon  became  the  morganatic  wife  of  Louis 
XIV.  It  was  Madame  de  Maintenon's  destiny, 
in  her  days  of  glory  as  well  as  in  her  days  of 
humility,  always  to  be  placed  in  a  false  position.. 
She  was  in  a  false  position  as  the  girl-wife  of: 
an  impotent  cripple.  She  was  in  an  equivocal 
position  as  the  governess  of  the  bastard  children 
of  Royalty.  She  still  remained  in  a  false  position 
as  the  uncrowned  Queen  of  France.  She  was 
the  wife  of  the  King,  but  she  was  only  the  mor- 
ganatic wife.  Officially  she  had  to  be  content 
with  a  back  seat.  Oijicially  she  was  only  a 
Lady-in-Waiting  to  the  Dauphiness.  But  in 
reality  she  occupied  the  first  place  in  the  kingdom^ 
For  thirty  years  she  was  the  trusted  adviser  oi 
Louis  XIV.  She  transformed  the  fickle  lover 
and  frivolous  pleasure-seeker  into  a  pious  and. 


MADAME   DE   MAINTENON        107 

devout  ruler.  Not  only  was  she  the  inseparable 
companion,  she  became  the  religious  conscience 
of  Louis.  It  is  to  her  that  he  owed  his  "con- 
version." 


The  conversion  was  hastened  by  a  severe 
illness,  and  both  the  conversion  and  the  illness 
had  ominous  consequences.  In  1686  Louis  XIV 
submitted  to  a  severe  operation.  For  months 
the  Court  surgeons  had  hesitated  to  incur  the 
risk,  and  had  ransacked  all  the  hospitals  of 
France  and  performed  similar  operations  on 
hundreds  of  patients  in  order  to  try  their  hand. 
For  months  after  the  operation  the  life  of  Louis 
hung  in  the  balance.  It  is  the  characteristic  of 
despotism  that  the  most  trivial  incidents  may 
produce  the  most  incalculable  results,  and  the 
illness  of  the  King  did  produce  incalculable 
results.  Michelet  has  rightly  divided  this  long 
reign  of  seventy-two  years  into  two  periods  : 
before  the  operation  and  after  the  operation. 
In  the  days  of  his  strength  Louis  had  been  called 
upon  by  Bossuet  and  Bourdaloue  to  surrender 
his  mistress,  to  cease  causing  scandal  to  his 
subjects,  but  he  had  refused  to  listen.  In  the 
dark  days  of  suffering,  in  the  presence  of  deaths 
he  saw  the  evil  of  his  ways,  and  he  determined 


108     THE   FRENCH   EENASCENCE 

to  do  penance  for  his  sins.  And  he  did  vicarious 
penance  at  the  expense  of  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  his  subjects.  Because  he  had  sinned,  the 
Huguenots  were  to  suffer. 

The  whole  of  the  French  people  supported  the 
religious  policy  of  the  King.  The  Huguenots 
were  odious  both  as  heretics  and  as  rebels.  Not 
only  the  gentle  Fenelon  but  the  sensible  Madame 
de  Sevigne  were  in  favour  of  the  Revocation. 
Even  the  persecuted  Jansenists,  even  Nicole, 
were  enthusiastic  in  praise  of  the  new  Constan- 
tine,  in  praise  of  a  policy  which  inflicted  untold 
sufferings  on  hundreds  of  thousands  of  innocent 
victims,  and  which  sent  those  victims  as  exiles 
to  the  extreme  ends  of  the  earth. 


XI 

The  influence  of  Madame  de  Maintenon  has 
been  very  much  overrated.  She  was  not 
ambitious,  and  she  preferred  remaining  behind 
the  scenes.  She  avoided  the  responsibilities 
of  power  as  anxiously  as  others  sought  them. 
She  meddled  neither  with  the  Foreign  Policy 
nor  the  Domestic  Policy.  Her  only  interests 
were  in  educational  and  religious  matters.  She 
did  not  care  who  was  to  be  in  command  of  an 
army  or  in  charge  of  a  ministry,  as  long  as 


MADAME   DE    MAINTENON         109 

she  was  consulted  on  the  selection  of  bishops 
and  cardinals.  She  took  an  active  part  in  the 
theological  quarrels  which  loomed  so  largely 
in  the  second  half  of  the  reign.  She  took  the 
side  of  the  Jesuits  against  the  Jansenists,  she 
took  the  side  of  Bossuet,  whom  she  distrusted, 
against  Fenelon,  whom  she  loved. 

Her  last  years  were  darkened  by  public 
disasters.  The  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  and  the  English  Revolution  had  ushered 
in  twenty-five  years  of  almost  uninterrupted 
wars,  at  the  end  of  which  France  found  herself 
reduced  to  a  state  of  bankruptcy.  Private 
tragedies  were  added  to  public  misfortunes. 
Death  removed,  one  after  another,  the  Princes 
of  the  Royal  family,  first,  the  only  brother  of 
Louis,  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  then  his  only  son, 
lastly,  his  two  grandchildren,  and  his  grand- 
daughter, until  the  dynastic  succession  was  only 
insured  by  one  infant  great-grandson,  the  future 
Louis  XV,  of  infamous  memory.  Louis  XIV 
bore  these  private  and  public  calamities  with 
heroic  fortitude.  The  pride  of  former  days  had 
mellowed  into  a  quiet  dignity  which  called 
forth  the  loyal  admiration  of  his  subjects  and 
the  respect  of  his  enemies. 

Louis  XIV  died  in  1715 ;  Madame  de 
Maintenon  only  survived  him  by  four  years. 


110      THE   FKENCH   EENASCENCE 

He   had   reigned   for   seventy-two   years ;     for 
thirty  years  she  had  shared  his  throne. 

With  characteristic  discretion,  Madame  de 
Maintenon  left  the  palace  twenty-four  hours 
before  the  King's  death,  and  withdrew  to  her 
beloved  St.  Cyr.  She  found  herself,  at  eighty 
years  of  age,  ruling  an  institution  of  girls  with  the 
same  tranquil  firmness  with  which  she  had  ruled 
the  Court  of  Versailles.  Her  enemies  had  accused 
her  again  and  again  of  having  amassed  prodigious 
wealth.  It  was  discovered  after  her  death  that 
the  total  personalty  left  by  the  uncrowned 
Queen  of  France  amounted  to  a  few  hundred 
pounds. 


LISELOTTE 


LISELOTTE : 
A  German  Princess  at  the  Court  of    Louis  XIV 

I 

About  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  there 
lived  at  the  Courts  of  Versailles  and  St.  Cloud 
a  German  Princess,  the  second  wife  of  the  only 
brother  of  Louis  XIV,  who  had  made  herself 
the  butt  of  universal  ridicule.  Strikingly  ugly, 
tactless  in  manner,  coarse  in  speech,  cynical 
and  sarcastic,  she  was  despised  and  derided  by 
the  courtiers,  she  was  ill-used  by  her  husband, 
she  was  out  of  favour  with  Louis,  she  was  hated 
by  the  King's  morganatic  wife,  Mme.  de 
Maintenon,  the  uncrowned  Queen  of  France. 
In  the  busy  throng  which  filled  the  galleries 
of  the  huge  palace,  she  lived,  in  the  recess  of 
her  private  apartments,  an  existence  of  almost 
complete  solitude,  and  eventually  she  was  re- 
duced to  the  company  of  her  dogs,  which  she 
preferred  to  the  society  of  a  Court  which  she 
abhorred.  Her  chief  occupation  in  life  for  thirty 
years  was  to  write  interminable  letters  to  her 

112 


LISELOTTE  113 

relatives  and  friends  in  Germany,  and  in  those 
letters  she  would  not,  like  her  contemporary 
Mme.  de  Sevigne,  pour  out  the  fullness  of  an 
affectionate  heart ;  she  only  sought  an  outlet  for 
the  malignant  German  hatred  that  oppressed  her. 
Little  did  the  courtiers  suspect  that  the  ungainly, 
massive,  unpopular  Princess  was  to  be  the 
ancestress  of  half  the  Imperial  and  Koyal  houses 
of  Europe,  and  that  she  would  appear  to  posterity 
as  one  of  the  most  remarkable  women  of  her 
age.  Still  less  did  they  suspect  that  their  own 
reputations  would  be  at  the  mercy  of  a  woman 
whom  they  reviled,  and  that  she  was  drawing 
the  features  of  their  moral  characters  in  indelible 
lines  for  all  times  to  come. 


II 

The  voluminous  correspondence  of  Elizabeth 
Charlotte,  Duchess  of  Orleans,  better  known 
to  French  historians  as  *'  Madame,"'  and  known 
to  German  historians  under  the  endearing  nick- 
name of  "  Liselotte,''  form  with  the  *'  Memoires  " 
of  Saint  Simon  the  most  important  historical 
document  for  the  last  thirty  years  of  the  reign 
of  Louis  XIV.  From  a  purely  literary  point 
of  view,  the  Memoirs  of  Saint  Simon  are,  no 


114       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

doubt,  vastly  superior,  and  it  would  be  absurd 
to  compare  the  finished,  incisive  pen-portraits 
of  the  greatest  memoir-writer  of  all  ages  with 
the  slovenly,  formless  outpourings  of  Liselotte. 
But  from  a  purely  historical  point  of  view,  the 
Correspondence  of  "  Madame  ''  has  even  greater 
value  than  the  "  Memoires,"  for  these  only 
received  their  final  form  fifty  years  after  the 
events  they  narrated,  and  the  historian  writes 
mainly  from  hearsay,  and  indirect  report.  On 
the  contrary,  the  letters  of  Liselotte  were  written 
day  after  day  under  the  direct  impression  of 
the  events  she  described.  She  possessed,  more- 
over, unique  opportunities  of  knowing  the  chief 
personages  of  the  times,  and  she  was  a  far  better 
observer,  as  well  as  a  more  intelligent  one,  than 
the  narrow-minded  Duke.  And,  finally,  being 
a  German  of  the  Germans,  and  thus  observing 
the  Court  of  Versailles,  as  it  were,  from  the  out- 
side, her  judgment  was  more  detached,  as  well 
as  more  penetrating. 

Whilst  there  exist  considerable  differences 
and  disagreements  between  the  ''  Memoires '' 
and  the  "  Correspondence,"  at  the  same  time 
there  also  exists  a  striking  parallelism  between 
them.  Both  writings  owe  their  origin  to  the 
same  circumstances,  namely,  to  the  fact  that 
Saint  Simon  and  Liselotte  were  both  seeking, 


LISELOTTE  115 

in  their  productions,  an  occupation  for  their 
enforced  leisure  and  an  outlet  for  their  passions, 
their  grievances  and  disappointments.  Both 
had  to  hide  their  writings  from  their  contem- 
poraries. Both  writers  are  bent  on  depicting 
the  darker  side  of  Court  life.  Both  look  on  the 
chief  characters  and  events  of  their  generation 
from  the  same  angle. 

And  both  the  "  Memoires  ''  and  the  "  Cor- 
respondence '*  have  been  buried  for  several 
generations  in  the  secret  archives  of  France 
and  Germany.  It  is  only  in  our  own  day  that 
M.  de  Boislisle  has  been  able  to  give  us  a  complete 
edition  of  Saint  Simon.  As  for  the  three  or 
four  thousand  letters  which  make  up  the 
"  Correspondence "  of  "  Madame,''  they  are 
still  partly  unpublished.  No  doubt,  publication 
after  publication  have  appeared  at  different 
times.  The  Literary  Society  of  Stuttgart  has 
published  no  less  than  seven  volumes.  The 
great  historian  Ranke  has  edited  a  whole  volume 
as  an  appendix  to  his  French  History.  But  a 
considerable  fraction  of  the  letters  are  still 
hidden  in  various  German  private  and  public 
libraries,  and  we  are  still  waiting  for  the  enter- 
prising editor  who  will  give  us  the  complete  and 
standard  edition.  The  extraordinary  success 
which  has  recently  attended  the  publication  by 


116       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

the  "  Langewiesche  Buchhandlung ""  of  a  most 
interesting  selection  from  the  "  Correspondence  " 
— no  less  than  twenty-five  thousand  copies  have 
been  sold — testifies  to  the  growing  public  interest 
in  one  of  the  most  remarkable  characters  and 
one  of  the  most  valuable  historical  documents 
of  modern  times. 


Ill 

The  young  German  girl,  who  arrived  in  1672 
at  the  Court  of  Versailles,  at  nineteen  years  of 
age,  as  the  bride  of  "  Monsieur  ''  Duke  of  Orleans, 
and  only  brother  of  Louis  XIV,  belonged  to 
one  of  the  poorest  but  one  of  the  most  illustrious 
dynasties  of  the  Empire.  Her  father,  Charles 
Louis,  Elector  Palatine,  had  recovered  his 
principality  on  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  in  1648. 
Her  grandfather,  the  head  of  the  Protestant 
Union  during  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  and  the 
ephemeral  and  ill-fated  King  of  Bohemia,  was 
a  descendant  of  William  of  Orange,  and  the 
husband  of  Elizabeth  Stuart,  daughter  of  King 
James  I  of  England.  It  is  not  generally  known 
that,  through  this  marriage,  Mary  Stuart  has 
become  the  ancestress  in  direct  line  of  practically 
every  European  dynasty, — of  the  German  and 
Austrian  Emperors,  of  the  Kings  of  England, 


LISELOTTE  117 

of  France,  Spain,  Belgium,  and  Bulgaria.  An 
uncle  of  Liselotte,  Prince  Eupert,  had  dis- 
tinguished himself  in  the  English  service. 
Another  uncle  married  the  notorious  Anna  of 
Gonzague,  the  "  Princess  Palatine.''  Her  Aunt 
Sophia  was  the  mother  of  King  George  I  of 
England. 

The  rich  valleys  and  vine-clad  hills  of  the 
Rhine  Palatinate  had  been  left  at  the  end  of  the 
Thirty  Years'  War  in  a  frightful  state  of  devasta- 
tion.    The  population  had  reverted  to  barbarism 
and  cannibalism.     The  political  anarchy  and  the 
moral  confusion  were  as  great  as  the  material 
ruin.     All  laws  and  traditions  were  in  abeyance, 
and  were  overruled  by  the  tyranny  and  personal 
-caprice  of  petty  princes.     We  shall  find  Liselotte 
passing  merciless  judgment  on  the  manners  and 
morals  of  the  Court  of  Versailles,  but  the  morals 
of  the  paternal  Court  of  Heidelberg  were  not 
much    better.     Her    father,    being    unable    to 
agree  with  the  wife  whom  he  married  in  1650, 
dissolved  the  marriage  on  his  own  authority  in 
1658,  and,  having  the  supreme  control  of  the 
Church  as  well  as  of  the  State,  he  forced  his 
subjects  to  recognize  his  bigamous  union  with 
Louise  von    Degenfeldt.     The   Church    Courts 
accepted  the  strange  situation,  even  as  Luther 
had  sanctioned  the  bigamous  marriage  of  Philip 


118       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

of  Hesse.  Poor  Louise  proved  a  most  com- 
pliant and  long-suifering  wife,  and  she  bore  her 
lord  fourteen  children.  For  many  years  the 
two  wives  lived  together  in  Heidelberg,  and  the 
little  Court  was  the  theatre  of  endless  domestic 
quarrels. 

It  was  fortunate  for  Liselotte  that  at  the  early 
age  of  seven  she  was  removed  from  those  strange 
family  surroundings  and  was  entrusted  to  the 
affectionate  care  of  her  Aunt  Sophia  of  Hanover. 
One  of  her  first  letters,  written  when  she  was 
seven  years  of  age,  informs  us  that  in  1659  she 
visited  her  grandmother,  Elizabeth  Stuart,  who 
lived  as  an  exile  in  Holland.  The  ex-Queen 
of  Bohemia  presented  her  granddaughter  with 
a  little  dog,  with  a  dancing-master,  and  a 
language-master.  She  also  made  her  a  promise 
of  a  singing-master. 

The  four  years  spent  at  the  Court  of  Hanover 
were  the  four  happiest  years  of  Liselotte's  life. 
Until  the  end  of  her  days  she  will  revert  to  that 
blissful  period,  and  she  will  retain  a  passionate 
affection,  not  only  for  her  Aunt  Sophia,  but  for 
all  those  who  took  part  in  her  early  education. 

In  1663,  her  father,  Charles  Louis,  finally  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  rid  of  his  first  wife,  and  in 
securing  her  removal  to  Cassel.  Liselotte  could 
now  safely  return  to  the  paternal  home,  where 


LISELOTTE  119 

she  grew  up  with  a  numerous  progeny  of  ille- 
gitimate step-brothers  and  step-sisters.  It  is 
characteristic  of  her  good  nature  that  she  always 
maintained  the  most  cordial  relations  with  all 
her  father's  second  family.  Indeed,  she  grew 
to  love  her  step-brothers  better  than  her  lawful 
brother,  the  future  Elector  Palatine. 


IV 

Life  at  the  Court  of  Heidelberg  was  a  queer 
mixture  of  dullness  and  pomposity,  of  pride 
and  poverty,  of  freedom  and  tyranny.  Charles 
Louis  was  a  martinet,  and  a  pedant,  thrifty  and 
stingy,  indulgent  to  himself,  implacably  severe 
to  his  children  and  to  his  subjects.  Being  a 
good  manager,  he  soon  succeeded  in  restoring 
the  prosperity  of  his  country  ;  but  his  political 
position  remained  difficult  and  precarious  be- 
tween  the  German  Emperor,  who  was  his  nominal 
sovereign,  and  the  King  of  France,  who  pos- 
sessed the  controlling  power  in  the  German 
Federation.  Every  means  was  deemed  legiti- 
mate by  Louis  XIV  to  increase  his  influence. 
He  did  with  the  German  Courts  what  he  had 
done  so  successfully  at  the  Court  of  Charles  II. 
He  used  in  turn  the  intrigues  of  his  diplomacy, 
the  power   of  money,   and  the  fascination  of 


120      THE   FEENCH   RENASCENCE 

beauty.  Pensions  were  lavished  on  impoverished 
princes.  French  mistresses  and  French  dancing- 
masters  were  freely  sent  and  exploited  for 
political  purposes. 

It  was  the  need  of  strengthening  his  poHtical 
position  as  well  as  the  desire  to  get  his  daughter 
out  of  the  way  that  determined  the  Elector  to 
seek  a  matrimonial  alliance  with  the  French 
Court,  on  the  sudden  death,  in  1671,  of  Henrietta 
of  England,  wife  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans. 

Little  did  the  Elector  Palatine  foresee  that  the 
marriage  of  his  daughter  would  prove  to  his 
country,  not  a  source  of  strength,  but  a  cause 
of  disaster,  that  Louis  XIV  would  use  the 
claims  of  Liselotte  as  a  pretext  for  invading  her 
father's  country,  that  the  Palatinate  would  be 
pillaged  once  more  by  hordes  of  soldiers,  that 
the  Palace  of  Heidelberg  would  be  burned  to 
the  ground,  and  that  all  those  horrors  would  be 
perpetrated  on  the  pretence  of  asserting  the 
rights  of  the  Duchess  of  Orleans.  He  might 
have  been  put  on  his  guard  by  the  very  eagerness 
with  which  the  German  marriage  was  welcomed 
by  Louis  XIV.  The  proud  King  would  not 
have  been  so  keen  to  accept  the  proposal  if  he 
had  not  already  harboured  pohtical  designs  of 
his  own.  Not  only  was  he  then  bent  on  extend- 
ing his  influence  in  Germany,  not  only  was  he 


LISELOTTE  121 

-coveting,  like  his  predecessor  Francis  I,  the 
-crown  and  sceptre  of  the  Holy  German  Empire, 
but  he  was  determined  to  use  Liselotte  as  a 
pawn  in  the  game  of  politics,  and  eventually  to 
establish  a  claim  to  the  succession  of  the 
Palatinate. 

But  those  consequences  of  the  German 
marriage  were  still  distant  and  remote,  hidden 
in  the  womb  of  Destiny.  In  the  meantime,  to 
s.\l  outward  appearances,  Elizabeth  Charlotte 
was  making  a  brilliant  match.  The  marriage 
contract  was  arranged  on  terms  the  most  favour- 
able to  the  Elector  Palatine.  What  was  a  most 
important  matter  for  an  avaricious  Prince  like 
the  Elector,  encumbered  with  a  numerous 
progeny,  a  dowry  was  not  insisted  on,  and  even 
the  nominal  sum  which  had  been  promised  was 
only  paid  after  many  years'  delay.  And  not 
only  did  Liselotte  enter  France  without  a  dowry, 
she  did  not  even  receive  a  trousseau.  It  was  a 
matter  of  deep  humiliation  to  the  proud  young 
Princess  that  her  father  sent  her  to  Saint  Ger- 
main with  a  most  inadequately  supplied  ward- 
robe. The  sole  condition  which  Louis  XIV 
insisted  on  was  a  change  of  religion,  and  that 
was  more  easily  obtained  from  the  Palatine 
Prince  than  an  adequate  provision  of  money. 
A  Duchess  of  Orleans  must  needs  be  a  Catholic. 


122     THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

Charles  Louis,  although  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
Protestant  party,  thought,  with  Henry  IV,  that 
Paris  and  the  Palais  Royal  and  the  Palace  of 
Saint  Cloud  were  well  worth  a  Mass.  To  save 
appearances,  and  to  make  matters  easier  for 
her  father,  poor  Liselotte  had  to  act  her  part 
in  an  ignoble  comedy.  Nothing  was  said  in 
the  marriage  contract  about  a  change  of  re- 
ligion, and  she  was  supposed  to  be  converted  of 
her  own  free  will.  It  was  arranged  that  on  her 
arrival  in  France  a  letter  was  to  be  dictated  to 
her,  in  which  she  was  to  announce  to  the  Elector 
her  voluntary  conversion.  Her  father  was  to 
send  in  reply  a  letter  expressing  his  righteous 
indignation  at  his  daughter's  apostasy  from  the 
true  Protestant  faith.  .  .  . 

After  all,  we  need  not  wonder  at  Liselotte's 
strange  conversion.  It  was  only  an  application 
of  the  old  Lutheran  principle  adopted  from  the 
very  beginning  of  the  Reformation : — Cujus 
regio,  illius  religio."  Religious  allegiance  fol- 
lowed political  allegiance,  and  spiritual  interests 
were  subordinated  to  reasons  of  State. 


V 

The  husband  to  whom  the  simple  German  girl 
was  married  had  a  most  detestable  reputation. 


LISELOTTE  123 

Public  rumour  accused  him  of  having  poisoned 
his  first  wife,  Henrietta  of  England,  whose 
sudden  death  has  been  immortalized  in  the 
**  Oraison  funebre ''  of  Bossuet,  "  Madame  se 
meurt!  Madame  est  mortef  And  although 
that  accusation  has  been  disproved,  the  evil 
repute  of  '*  Monsieur "  was  otherwise  amply 
deserved.  All  spirit  and  manliness  had  been 
crushed  out  of  him  by  Cardinal  Mazarin.  The 
younger  brothers  of  the  French  Kings  had  often 
given  trouble  in  previous  generations.  In  recent 
times  Gaston  of  Orleans  had  been  one  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Civil  War.  Mazarin,  therefore, 
had  been  above  all  careful  to  make  "  Monsieur  " 
a  harmless  fool  and  a  compliant  tool  of  his 
elder  brother.     He  had  only  succeeded  too  well. 

**  Philippe,  Duke  of  Orleans,"'  says  Saint  Simon, 
"  was  a  little  round  man,  who  seemed  mounted 
on  stilts,  so  high  were  his  heels.  Always  decked 
out  like  a  woman,  covered  with  rings,  bracelets, 
with  jewels  everywhere,  and  a  long  wig  brought 
forward  and  powdered,  with  ribbons  wherever 
they  could  be  placed,  highly  perfumed  and  in  all 
things  scrupulously  clean,  he  was  accused  of 
putting  on  a  very  little  rouge.  The  nose  was 
very  long,  his  eyes  and  mouth  fine,  the  face  full, 
but  long." 

"  Madame "   herself  points  out  the  striking 


124      THE   FEENCH   RENASCENCE 

contrast  between  the  Duke  of  Orleans  and 
Louis  XIV,  entirely  to  the  disadvantage  of  her 
husband.  "  One  would  never  have  taken  the 
Xing  and  '  Monsieur '  for  two  brothers.  The 
King  was  tall,  whilst  My  Lord  was  short.  He 
had  purely  efiieminate  inclinations,  was  fond  of 
dress,  was  careful  of  his  complexion,  loved  every 
kind  of  female  occupation  and  ceremony.  The 
King  was  quite  the  opposite.  He  did  not  care 
for  dress.  He  had  only  manly  tastes.  He  was 
fond  of  shooting,  and  liked  to  talk  about  war. 

*  Monsieur  '  behaved  well  on  the  battlefield,  but 
he  did  not  care  to  talk  about  military  matters. 

*  Monsieur  '  loved  to  have  ladies  as  playmates, 
and  delighted  in  their  company.  The  King 
preferred  to, see  ladies  more  privately,  and  not  in 
^11  honour  like  '  Monsieur."  '* 


VI 

With  characteristic  outspokenness,  "Madame'' 
admits  that  *'  Monsieur  *'  was  sorely  disap- 
pointed on  first  meeting  her.  He  expected  a 
plain  bride,  but  the  reality  exceeded  his  anti- 
<3ipations.  "  When  I  reached  St.  Germain,  I  felt 
as  if  I  had  dropped  from  the  sky.  I  put  on  as 
pleasant  a  face  as  I  possibly  could.     I  saw  full 


LISELOTTE  125 

well  that  I  did  not  please  My  Lord  and  Master, 
but  there  was  no  witchery  in  that,  considering 
how  ugly  I  am.  So  I  took  the  resolution  to  live 
with  him  so  amicably  that  he  would  get  accus- 
tomed to  my  ugliness,  and  put  up  with  me, 
which,  in  fact,  is  what  actually  happened." 

However,  the  first  years  of  the  marriage  were 
not  unhappy.  ''  Monsieur,""  if  not  affectionate, 
was  deferential.  "  Madame  "  was  sensible,  and 
indulged  her  husband's  weaknesses.  Both 
agreed  to  differ.  "  Madame '"  received  many 
a  pleasant  visit  from  her  friends  and  relatives 
in  Germany.  Both  her  brother,  Charles  Louis, 
and  her  beloved  aunt,  Sophia  of  Hanover,  came 
to  Versailles,  witnessed  Liselotte's  growing 
favour,  and  basked  in  her  popularity.  The 
birth  of  three  children  proved  a  firm  bond  be- 
tween a  couple  who  otherwise  had  nothing  in 
common. 


VII 

After  about  six  years  of  married  life,  relations 
became  gradually  strained.  But  even  then 
"  Madame  "  found  ample  compensation  in  the 
friendship  of  the  King.  Louis  found  pleasure 
in  the  sallies  of  his  sister-in-law.  He  appreciated 
her   outspokenness,    her   sound   judgment   and 


126      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

common  sense.  He  relished  her  quaint  language 
and  her  strong  German  accent.  He  delighted 
in  taking  her  out  hunting,  in  making  her  his 
confidential  adviser.  On  the  other  hand, 
"  Madame  "  felt  unbounded  admiration  for  his 
Majesty.  If  we  are  to  believe  the  gossip  of  the 
Court,  as  we  find  it  retailed  in  the  Memoirs  of  the 
times,  in  the  "  Correspondence  ''  of  Mme.  de 
Sevigne,  and  if  we  read  between  the  lines  of 
"  Madame's '"  Letters,  she  very  soon  got  to  feel 
something  more  than  friendship  and  admiration 
for  Louis.  It  was  the  King  who  had  fallen  in 
love  with  the  first  Duchess  of  Orleans  :  now  it 
was  the  second  Duchess  who  fell  in  love  with  the 
King.  There  is  at  least  this  advantage  in  Mme. 
de  Sevigne's  version,  endorsed  as  it  is  by  the 
most  recent  biographer  of  Liselotte,  Mme.  Arvdde 
Barine,  that,  if  we  accept  her  view,  it  becomes 
much  easier  to  understand  the  unbounded 
hatred  which  Liselotte  came  to  feel  for  Mme.  de 
Maintenon.  That  hatred  was  not  due  to  any 
incompatibility  of  temperament,  or  to  wounded 
vanity,  rather  did  it  originate  in  female  jealousy. 
The  "Widow  Scarron,"  the  "Sultana,"  the 
"  witch,''  had  ousted  Liselotte  from  the  affections 
of  King  Louis. 


LISELOTTE  127 

VIII 

After  the  birth  of  her  daughter,  in  September 
1676,  a  complete  change  took  place  in  the  rela- 
tions of  "  Madame ""  both  to  her  husband  and 
to  her  brother-in-law.  "  Monsieur ''  fell  more 
and  more  under  the  influence  of  his  minions,  and 
subjected  his  wife  to  petty  humiliations.  The 
King  ceased  to  pay  her  attentions.  He  ceased 
to  take  out  his  sister-in-law  for  drives  to  Marly 
and  hunting  parties  in  the  forest  of  Fontaine- 
bleau. 

Liselotte  attributes  the  change  to  the  intrigues 
of  the  minions  and  of  the  odious  "  Sultana.'' 
The  truth  is  that  the  cause  of  the  estrangement 
lay  much  deeper  than  mere  personal  machina- 
tions. 

In  the  first  place,  there  were  the  racial  differ- 
ences between  the  French  character  and  the 
character  of  Liselotte,  which  was  thoroughly 
<Terman.  Unlike  most  Germans,  who  so  easily 
merge  their  national  peculiarities,  she  refused  to 
be  assimilated,  to  adapt  herself  to  the  atmosphere 
of  the  Court.  She  retained  her  idiosyncrasies. 
With  truly  German  tactlessness  and  indis- 
cretion, she  criticized  every  French  custom  and 
institution.  Imbued  with  an  overweening  pride 
of  birth,  she  insisted  on  her  prerogatives.  She 
was  intractable  in  matters  of  etiquette.     She 


128        THE   FKENCH   KENASCENCE 

proclaimed  the  superiority  of  the  ancient  Grermaik 
nobility  over  the  upstart  French  "  Noblesse/' 
She  even  claimed  superiority  for  German  sausages- 
and  German  sauerkraut  over  the  refinements 
of  the  French  cuisine.  She  was  merciless  in  her 
judgments  of  the  leading  personages  at  Courts 
and,  as  her  letters  were  periodically  opened  by 
the  post  and  copied  in  the  "  Black  Cabinet/' 
she  made  herself,  in  a  very  short  time,  countless 
enemies. 

Nor  must  we  forget  the  fatal  effect  produced 
by  her  outspokenness  in  matters  of  religion. 
"  Madame  ''  was  a  most  liberal  Christian,  and 
almost  a  freethinker.  She  had  remained  at 
heart  a  Protestant,  and  her  religious  heresies- 
gave  all  the  more  offence  and  scandal,  because 
since  the  King's  illness  and  operation  the  French. 
Court  had  become  more  and  more  devout  and 
more  and  more  orthodox.  Louis  was  already 
preparing  for  the  systematic  expulsion  of  the- 
Protestant  element. 

IX 

Until  the  end  of  her  life  she  remained  con-^ 
vinced  that  it  was  Mme.  de  Maintenon  who  was, 
above  all,  responsible  for  her  estrangement  from 
the  King.  Her  abhorrence  for  the  Sultana,  of 
the  "  witch,''  became  a  fixed  idea  and  obsession^ 


LISELOTTE  129 

Every  trait  of  her  character,  every  strong  feeling 
and  passion  combined  to  inspire  her  with  an 
ineradicable  repulsion.  The  reserve  and  the  dis- 
creet manner  of  the  favourite  were  abhorrent  to 
her  impulsive  and  outspoken  disposition.  Her 
pride  of  birth  despised  the  upstart  governess 
and  the  widow  of  a  low-class  poet  and  jester. 
But  above  all  her  jealousy  could  not  forgive 
Madame  de  Maintenon  for  having  alienated  from 
her  the  one  man  she  loved  and  admired. 

When  we  read  to-day  the  "  Correspondence  " 
of  Liselotte,  we  receive  the  impression  that 
"  Madame  "  had  only  herself  to  blame,  and  that 
Mme.  de  Maintenon  was  more  sinned  against 
than  sinning.  It  was  natural  enough  that 
"  Madame "  should  impute  the  responsibility 
of  all  her  grievances  to  the  "  Widow  Scarron." 
Mme.  de  Maintenon  was  supposed  to  be  om- 
nipotent, and  therefore  it  was  almost  inevitable 
that  she  should  be  made  answerable  for  every- 
thing that  happened.  No  doubt  the  morganatic 
wife  of  Louis  could  not  feel  any  sympathy  for 
the  proud  German.  It  wo  old  have  been  too 
much  to  expect  of  her,  that  she  should  requite 
the  implacable  hatred  of  *'  Madame  "'  with  kind 
offices  of  friendship.  But  we  have  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  Mme.  de  Maintenon  went  out  of  her 
way  to  do  any  disservice  to  the  King's  sister-in- 


130     THE   FRENCH   EENASCENCE 

law.  The  hatred  was  all  on  one  side.  Secure 
in  the  love  of  the  King,  Mme.  de  Maintenon 
could  afford  to  despise  and  ignore  the  passionate 
outbursts  of  her  implacable  and  impotent 
German  enemy. 


Humiliated  and  persecuted  by  her  husband, 
estranged  from  the  King,  Liselotte  found  little 
consolation  in  her  children.  She  might  have 
derived  some  satisfaction  from  her  only  daughter, 
who  was  dutiful  and  affectionate,  but  at  eighteen 
years  of  age  she  was  married  to  the  Duke  of 
Lorraine,  and  was  lost  to  her  mother.  The 
tyranny  of  etiquette  made  it  impossible  for  the 
one  to  visit  the  other,  except  on  conditions  which 
were  unacceptable  to  the  King's  Majesty ! 

Her  only  son,  the  famous  and  infamous 
Regent-that-was-to-be,  although  clever,  kind- 
hearted  and  respectful,  grew  up  to  be  as  vicious, 
in  another  way,  as  his  depraved  father.  Before 
he  was  twenty  the  corruption  of  a  perverse 
Court  had  tainted  him  to  the  marrow.  But 
what  grieved  her  even  more  than  the  misconduct 
of  the  Duke  de  Chartres  was  the  misalliance 
which  he  was  prevailed  upon  to  enter  into  with 
Mile,  de  Blois.    That  the  great-grandson  of  a 


LISELOTTE  -  131 

King  of  England  and  the  grandson  of  a  King  of 
France  should  agree  to  marry  the  bastard 
daughter  of  Mme.  de  Montespan  was  the  crowning 
humiliation  which  embittered  the  remainder  of 
her  days. 

XI 

In  1699  "  Monsieur  "  suddenly  died  of  apo- 
plexy, after  a  violent  fit  of  anger  with  his  Royal 
brother,  followed  by  a  too  copious  dinner. 
*'  Monsieur "  had  always  overtaxed  his  truly 
Royal  stomach,  which  was  as  characteristic  of 
the  Bourbons  as  the  eagle  nose,  and  he  fell  a 
victim  to  his  intemperance.  The  death  of  her 
husband  reduced  Liselotte  more  than  ever  to  the 
mercy  of  Louis.  The  King,  as  always,  proved 
generous.  Liselotte  retained  most  of  the  pen- 
sions which  had  been  granted  to  the  Duke  of 
Orleans,  and  as  her  income  was  henceforth  at 
her  own  disposal,  instead  of  being  squandered 
on  her  husband's  favourites,  she  was  now  much 
better  off  than  in  the  lifetime  of  her  lord  and 
master. 

But  it  was  one  of  the  conditions  of  the  King's 
favours  that  "  Madame "  should  make  peace 
with  Mme.  de  Maintenon.  The  proud  German 
Princess  had  to  humiliate  herself  before  the 
^x-governess.    The   vindictive   woman   had   to 


132      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

forget  and  to  forgive.  The  outspoken  and  im- 
pulsive character  had  to  dissemble  and  to  re- 
strain her  outbursts  of  temper.  The  scene  of 
reconciliation,  which  has  been  graphically  de- 
scribed by  Saint  Simon,  took  place  with  a  liberal 
display  of  goodwill  on  the  part  of  Mme.  de  Main- 
tenon,  and,  on  the  part  of  Liselotte,  with  abun- 
dant outbursts  of  repentance  and  promises  for 
the  future.  But  the  reconciliation  proved  only 
superficial  and  ephemeral.  Outward  forms  were 
observed,  but  the  hatred  was  more  unrelenting 
than  ever,  having  gathered  strength  from  the 
public  humiliation. 

XII 

One  may  wonder,  with  her  biographers,  why 
Liselotte,  on  the  death  of  "  Monsieur,^'  did  not 
retire  to  Germany,  or,  as  had  been  provided  in 
her  marriage  contract,  why  she  did  not  take 
advantage  of  the  seclusion  and  peace  of  a 
convent,  the  favourite  retreat  and  refuge  of 
Royal  widows  in  those  religious  times.  But 
various  reasons  made  her  prefer  the  solitude 
of  Versailles  and  St.  Cloud.  Although  not  a 
tender  mother,  it  is  possible  that  she  did  not 
want  to  part  from  her  only  son.  Moreover,  to 
a  heretic  Uke  Liselotte,  the  atmosphere  of  a 


LISELOTTE  133 

convent  was  uncongenial.  Nor  did  she  possess 
the  financial  means  to  keep  up  her  position  in 
Germany,  and  she  was  too  proud  to  accept  a 
subordinate  place  in  her  native  country,  after 
having  occupied  an  exalted  position  in  France. 
And,  finally,  she  hoped  for  an  imminent  change 
which  might  bring  deliverance  from  the  odious 
tyranny  of  the  "  Sultana."  So  many  ladies  had 
possessed  in  turn  the  fickle  heart  of  Louis. 
Why  should  not  a  new  favourite  arise  and  take 
the  place  of  the  "  Widow  Scarron  "  ?  Or  why 
should  she  not  herself  be  restored  to  the  Koyal 
friendship  ?  And  thus  did  pride  and  prejudice, 
maternal  love  and  human  illusion  combine  to 
detain  her  in  France,  and  thus,  until  the  end  of 
her  days,  she  continued  to  occupy  with  her  dogs 
her  private  apartments  at  Versailles  and  her 
palace  at  St.  Cloud. 

XIII 

For  fifteen  years  she  had  to  wait  for  the  great 
King  to  disappear  from  a  scene  which  he  had 
filled  for  seventy-two  years,  having  ruled  longer 
than  any  sovereign  of  modern  times  !  When 
the  change  did  come  it  was  too  late.  No  doubt 
she  breathed  more  freely  when  her  detested 
rival  returned  to  St.  Cyr,  and  took  up  once  more 


134      THE   FEENCH   EENASCENCE 

her  natural  vocation  as  a  governess,  after  having 
been  for  thirty  years  the  uncrowned  Queen  of 
France.  But  Liselotte  sincerely  regretted  the 
old  King.  He  had  been  kind  to  her  in  her  youth, 
and  she  had  never  ceased  to  love  him.  Her 
son  had  now  become  Eegent  of  France,  and 
she  herself  was  now  the  first  lady  in  the  realm. 
And  she  would  have  been  more  than  woman  if 
her  vanity  had  not  been  flattered  under  the 
changed  circumstances.  On  the  other  hand, 
she  less  than  ever  approved  of  the  ways  of  her 
family.  Her  son  was  addicted  to  women  and 
gambling.  Her  granddaughter,  the  Duchess 
of  Berry,  astonished  even  a  corrupt  Court 
with  her  continuous  scandals.  Of  real  political 
influence  Liselotte  had  none.  The  Eegent, 
rather  than  listen  to  the  counsels  of  his  mother, 
preferred  to  follow  the  advice  of  the  infamous 
Cardinal  du  Bois,  or  of  the  upstart  Edinburgh 
financier  and  adventurer,  John  Law,  of 
Lauriston,  who,  with  his  Mississippi  schemes, 
eventually  ruined  half  the  nobility  of  Versailles, 
and  turned  Paris  into  a  gambling  den. 


XIV 

And  even  if  Liselotte,  after  her  long  years  of 
constraint  and  humiliation,  had  been  disposed 


LISELOTTE  135 

to  rejoice  in  her  new  position,  her  capacity  of 
enjoyment  was  rapidly  giving  way  at  the 
approach  of  age  and  illness.  Her  health  had 
been  excellent  as  long  as  she  had  been 
able  to  take  exercise,  but  during  the  last 
years  of  Louis'  reign  disfavour  and  seclusion, 
as  well  as  the  tyranny  of  etiquette,  had  con- 
demned her  more  and  more  to  a  sedentary 
existence.  Her  form,  which  had  always  been 
ample,  now  became  every  day  more  massive 
and  unwieldy,  and  made  motion  increasingly 
difficult.  Her  intellect  had  lost  none  of  its 
keenness  and  activity.  Under  the  freer  atmo- 
sphere of  the  Kegency,  she  indulged  to  the 
full  her  natural  bent  for  moralizing  and 
speculating.  She  corresponded  with  the  greatest 
philosopher  of  the  age,  Leibnitz,  and  with  the 
rising  generation  of  German  thinkers.  Whilst 
Louis  XIV  had  become  more  and  more  devout 
with  advancing  age  and  increasing  infirmities, 
Liselotte  became  more  and  more  a  freethinker, 
and  railed  more  and  more  against  superstition 
and  sacerdotal  tyranny.  Her  undaunted  spirit 
saw  the  approach  of  death  without  terror. 
Until  the  end  she  plied  her  incisive  pen,  and 
continued  to  entertain  her  German  friends  with 
her  interminable  epistles.  She  died  at  seventy 
years  of  age,  only  preceding  her  son,  the  Regent, 


136       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

by  one  year.  She  had  spent  exactly  half  a 
century  in  France.  Since  she  left  Heidelberg, 
in  1672,  she  had  never  seen  again  the  smiling 
hills  and  vineyards  of  her  native  country  that 
she  loved  so  well. 


SIR    ARTHUR   CONAN   DOYLE   ON   THE 
FRENCH  HUGUENOTS 


SIR  ARTHUR  CONAN  DOYLE 
ON  THE  FRENCH  HUGUENOTS^ 

It  might  have  been  better  if  Sir  Arthur  Conan 
Doyle  had  not  republished  a  cheap  edition  of 
the  "  Kefugees/'  Sir  Arthur  has  a  great 
reputation  to  lose,  and  the  "  Refugees "  can 
add  nothing  to  that  reputation.  In  this 
historical  novel  on  the  expulsion  of  the 
Huguenots  and  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes,  Sir  Arthur  has  not  shown  that  acute 
sense  of  reality  and  that  careful  attention  to  fact 
which  have  established  the  fame  of  "  Sherlock 
Holmes/'  On  the  contrary,  he  has  taken  un- 
pardonable liberties  with  history,  and  indulged 
in  anachronisms  which  even  the  most  unbridled 
licence  of  poetry  could  not  justify.  An  English 
novelist  writing  on  French  history  may  presume 
a  great  deal  on  the  ignorance  of  his  readers, 
but  treating  of  a  period  which  is  so  near  to  us 
and  so  familiar.  Sir  Arthur  has  really  presumed 
too  much.  I  do  not  know  of  another  novel 
where  history  is  so  grossly  distorted  and  where 
chronology  is  so  grotesquely  trifled  with. 

1  Sir  A.  C.  Doyle,  "  The  Refugees. "     Nelson,  7d. 
138 


THE  FRENCH  HUGUENOTS         139 

In  the  year  of  grace  1685,  when  the  events 
narrated  in  the  "  Refugees  "  unfold  themselves, 
the  Duke  of  Saint  Simon  could  not  have  aired 
his  views  on  Versailles  politics,  as  the  great 
Memoire  writer  was  only  a  little  boy  of  ten. 
On  the  other  hand,  Corneille  could  not  have 
moved  in  Court  circles,  for  he  had  died  in  the 
previous  year,  a  broken  old  man  of  eighty,  and 
his  last  years  were  passed  in  poverty  and  illness 
and  oblivion.  Moverover,  every  French  "  school- 
boy " — I  really  do  mean  every  French  schoolboy, 
not  Macaulay's  schoolboy — might  have  told 
Sir  Arthur  that  the  fatal  blunder  which  brought 
down  the  wrath  of  Louis  XIV  was  committed, 
not  by  Corneille,  but  by  his  rival,  Racine. 

As  Sir  Arthur  confuses  Racine  and  Corneille 
(what  would  we  think  of  an  English  writer  who 
would  write  a  novel  on  the  age  of  Shakespeare 
and  who  could  confuse  Shakespeare  and  Milton  ?) 
he  as  hopelessly  mixes  up  Fenelon,  Bossuet, 
and  Massillon.  Courtiers  could  not  have 
discussed  in  1685  the  comparative  merits  of 
Massillon  and  Bourdaloue,  for  Massillon  was 
still  an  unknown  young  cleric,  and  his  success 
as  a  Court  preacher  was  only  achieved  about  a 
quarter  of  a  century  later.  Sir  Arthur  is  guilty 
of  the  same  anachronism  with  regard  to  Fenelon. 
Fenelon  has  not  yet  appeared  at  Court.    Nor 


140       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

is  it  Fenelon,  but  Bossuet,  who  had  leanings 
to  Jansenism.  For  the  future  Archbishop  of 
Cambrai  from  the  very  beginning  was  a  most 
bitter  opponent  of  the  Jansenists,  and  his  heresy 
of  quietism  has  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with 
the  heresy  of  the  grand  Arnauld. 

The  character  sketch  which  Sir  Arthur  gives 
us  of  Louis  XIV  very  much  resembles  a 
caricature.  Sir  Arthur  has  learned  from  the 
"  Memoires "  of  Saint  Simon  that  Louis  was 
very  ignorant,  and  I  dare  say  that  the  illustration 
he  gives  is  not  improbable.  The  great  King  is 
quite  as  likely  to  have  confused  Darius  and 
Alexander  as  the  novelist  himself  has  confused 
Corneille  and  Racine,  and  the  Sovereign  was 
more  excusable  than  the  writer.  But  it  is  most 
unlikely  that  the  "  Roi-Soleil "  should  have 
condescended  to  a  conversation  with  Corneille 
on  such  a  slippery  subject,  even  if  Corneille  had 
been  still  alive. 

With  regard  to  Mme.  de  Maintenon,  Sir  Arthur 
has  been  kept  straight  by  the  admirable  Essay 
of  Doellinger,  which,  fortunately  for  the  novelist, 
is  not  quite  as  stiff  reading  as  the  twenty  volumes 
of  Saint  Simon.  But  here,  again,  how  little  does 
the  author  seem  to  have  understood  his  heroine, 
and  how  ludicrous  and  psychologically  impossible 
is  the  love  scene  on  page  88  !    And  here,  again, 


THE  FRENCH  HUGUENOTS        141 

he  might  have  remembered  that  in  1685  Louis 
was  forty-seven,  while  Mme.  de  Maintenon  was 
fifty.  Sir  Arthur  makes  the  proud  Majesty 
of  forty-seven  speak  to  the  stately  widow  of 
fifty  even  as  a  lovesick  swain  of  twenty  might 
speak  to  a  girl  of  eighteen.  He  makes  Louis 
ask  in  a  sentimental  outbrust  whether,  forsooth, 
he,  the  King,  was  the  widow's  fijst  love.  Even 
Sir  Arthur  cannot  fail  to  see  that  for  Louis  XIV 
and  Mme.  de  Maintenon  the  age  of  passion 
had  passed,  and  that  what  drew  Louis  XIV  to 
Mme.  de  Maintenon,  and  what  kept  the  once 
so  fickle  lover  faithful  for  thirty  years  to  the 
widow  of  Scarron,  was  not  passion,  but  the 
moral  influence  and  spiritual  magnetism  of  one 
of  the  most  extraordinary  women  of  French 
history. 

I  am  only  dwelling  on  a  few  of  the  more 
glaring  errors.  There  are  hundreds  of  them. 
Sir  Arthur  derives  most  of  his  information 
from  Saint  Simon,  but  he  has  read  the  immortal 
memoir-writer  with  an  absent-minded  eye  and 
to  very  little  purpose.  The  expulsion  of  Arnauld 
took  place  in  1656,  thirty  years  before  the  period 
of  the  "  Refugees."  Neither  the  insolence  of 
Pascal  nor  the  last  comedy  of  Moliere  could 
have  been  the  topic  of  the  day,  for  the  "  Provin- 
ciales  "  of  Pascal  and  the  last  comedy  of  Moliere 


142       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

appeared  an  entire  generation  before.  The 
faithful  servant  Nanon  was  not  young,  but  old. 
It  was  not  Fagon,  but  Daquin,  who  was  first 
physician  to  his  Majesty.  Louis  XIV  rose  at 
eight  in  the  morning,  and  not  at  eight-thirty. 
Louis  XIV  did  not  wholly  depend  on  his  valets 
de  chambre  in  the  ritual  of  dress,  and  he  per- 
formed it  himself  with  becoming  grace  and 
majesty,  as  Saint  Simon  is  careful  to  add. 
Louis  XIV  was  never  lax  in  the  discharge  of 
his  religious  duties,  and  he  only  once  missed 
attending  Mass,  and  that  only  in  the  course  of 
a  strenuous  campaign.  It  is  Louvois,  and  not 
Colbert,  who  created  the  Invalides.  The  famous 
scene  of  the  window  of  Trianon  occurred  at  a 
later  date,  and  was,  according  to  Saint  Sinaon, 
the  futile  cause  of  the  European  War  of  1688. 
Louis  XIV  threatened  Louvois  with  pincers,  not 
because  he  had  sent  a  letter  to  Lord  Sunderland, 
but  because  he  had  ordered  the  archiepiscopal 
and  electoral  city  of  Treves  to  be  burnt.  The 
Marquis  de  Montespan  only  died  in  1700. 
Eontemps  could  not  have  called  Mme.  de  Main- 
tenon  the  "  new  one,"  for  she  had  been  at  Court 
for  ten  years,  and  a  favourite  for  five. 

The  writer  who  perpetrates  such  glaring  mis- 
takes in  matters  of  detail  is  not  likely  to  be  more 
.trustworthy  with  regard  to  the  main  subject 


THE   FRENCH   HUGUENOTS       143 

^nd  purpose  of  his  book.  According  to  Sir 
Arthur,  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes 
was  the  result  of  a  fiendish  plot  between  Bossuet, 
the  Jesuit  Confessor,  and  Mme.  de  Maintenon. 
Mme.  de  Maintenon  pledged  herself  to  use  her 
influence  over  Louis  XIV  in  order  to  secure  the 
expulsion  of  her  former  co-religionists,  and  the 
Churchmen  pledged  themselves  to  use  their 
influence  to  bring  about  her  marriage  with  the 
King.  So  intimate  is  the  connection  between 
one  event  and  the  other  that  in  the  novel  the 
Revocation  takes  place  two  days  after  the 
marriage,  whereas,  in  point  of  fact,  the  marriage 
took  place  in  December,  1684,  and  the  Revoca- 
tion was  signed  in  October,  1685.  No  doubt 
the  combination  of  Love  and  Fanaticism  is  very 
melodramatic.  Unfortunately,  it  is  absolutely 
untrue  to  history.  The  expulsion  of  the  Hugue- 
nots would  have  occurred  without  Mme.  de 
Maintenon,  and  without  the  Jesuit  Father,  La 
Chaise.  So  far  from  encouraging  the  marriage 
with  Louis  XIV,  Father  La  Chaise  resolutely 
opposed  it. 

No  act  of  Louis  XIV  has  been  more  generally 
approved  of  by  his  contemporaries  than  the 
Revocation.  It  is  not  only  a  big-hearted  woman 
like  Mme.  de  Maintenon,  or  a  gentle  prelate  like 
Fenelon,    who    gave    their    assent.     Even    the 


144       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

persecuted  Jansenists  demanded  the  expulsion 
of  the  Huguenots,  even  as  the  saintly  Gerson 
demanded  the  condemnation  of  John  Huss. 

The  whole  French  nation,  therefore,  are  re- 
sponsible for  the  deed,  and  it  is  grossly  unfair, 
and  it  is  only  humouring  popular  ignorance  and 
popular  prejudice,  to  single  out  one  woman  and 
a  bishop  and  a  Jesuit,  and  make  them  the 
scapegoats  of  a  national  policy.  And  what  is 
even  more  relevant  to  our  general  criticism,  it 
is  entirely  to  misrepresent  that  great  historical 
tragedy,  to  narrate  which  was,  after  all,  the 
main  purpose  of  the  author  of  the  "'  Refugees/^ 


KOUSSEAU'S  "^MILE 


EOUSSEAU'S   EMILE 


Rousseau's  "  Emile  "  is  one  of  the  strangest 
paradoxes  of  the  whole  history  of  Hteratnre.  It 
is  a  book  composed  by  a  man  in  the  grip  of  a 
fatal  mental  disease,  yet  it  is  one  of  the  sanest 
and  wisest  books  ever  written  on  the  conduct  of 
life.  It  is  the  work  of  a  Bohemian  and  a  vaga- 
bond who  had  sent  his  own  children  to  a  foundling 
hospital,  yet  it  remains  to  this  day  the  most 
stimulating  and  the  most  inspiring  treatise  on 
the  theory  and  practice  of  education.  It  is  the 
utterance  of  the  last  consistent  Protestant,  of 
the  greatest  of  the  children  of  Calvin,  who, 
unlike  modern  Protestants,  protested  all  his  life, 
and  yet  it  is  a  work  essentially  catholic  and 
universal. 

On  its  publication  in  1762,  the  powers,  tem- 
poral and  spiritual,  took  sudden  alarm. 
"  limile  "  was  burnt  by  order  of  Parliament. 
It  was  condemned  in  a  special  charge  by  the 
Archbishop  of  Paris,  and  the  author  narrowly 
escaped  imprisonment,  and  had  only  just  time 

146 


ROUSSEAU'S   "EMILE"  147 

to  seek  refuge  in  his  native  Switzerland.  And 
Church  and  State  had  good  reason  to  be  alarmed, 
for  no  single  book  did  more  to  overthrow  the 
old  monarchy  and  to  hasten  on  the  advent  of 
the  French  Revolution.  Its  influence  was  im- 
mediate, it  was  universal,  and  it  was  permanent. 
Educational  topics  became  the  fashion.  Mothers 
awakened  to  a  sense  of  their  responsibilities ; 
aristocratic  ladies  deserted  their  salons  for  the 
nursery,  and  interrupted  their  receptions  to 
suckle  their  babies.  Rousseau  advocated  a 
return  to  nature,  and  a  return  to  the  country, 
and  lo  !  the  upper  classes  left  Versailles  and 
Paris  for  a  simple  life  of  rural  pursuits.  Rous- 
seau recommended  that  every  child  should  be 
taught  a  manual  trade,  and  lo  !  poor  King 
Louis  XIV  became  a  locksmith  and  Marie 
Antoinette  built  herself  a  dairy-farm  in  the 
Petit  Trianon.  Rousseau  preached  the  creed 
of  the  Savoyard  priest,  and  lo  !  Robespierre 
made  this  creed  the  religion  of  the  State.  Won- 
derful miracle  of  the  literary  art,  which  thus 
subjected  to  the  magic  influence  of  the  same 
potent  mind  both  the  old  Aristocracy  and  the 
new  Democracy  which  sent  that  old  Aristocracy 
to  the  scaffold  !  And  that  influence  of  "  fimile  '' 
has  continued  down  to  our  own  times.  A  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  have  not  exhausted  its 


148      THE   FKENCH   EENASCENCE 

fecundity.  Wherever  there  has  been  an  educa- 
tional revival  in  the  nineteenth  century,  we  can 
trace  it  directly  or  indirectly  to  a  study  of 
Rousseau.  Some  years  ago,  in  a  remote  village 
of  the  Russian  plain,  Tolstoy  confessed  to  the 
writer  of  these  lines  that  it  was  Rousseau  who 
first  started  him  on  his  career  as  a  social  re- 
former. 


II 

The  first  quality  which  strikes  us  in  "  ifimile  "' 
is  its  lofty  idealism.  No  teacher  who  reads  the 
book — and  it  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of  every 
instructor  of  youth — will  enter  on  his  calling 
with  a  light  heart.  Few  thinkers  have  done 
more  to  make  us  realize  the  formidable  responsi- 
bilities which  are  attached  to  the  noblest  of 
professions,  for  that  profession  demands  not 
merely  intellectual  ability,  but  the  sacrifice  and 
dedication  and  surrender  of  the  whole  man. 
What  Rousseau  expects  of  a  teacher  is  not  a 
knowledge  of  books,  but  a  knowledge  of  the 
child.  Rousseau  is  no  doctrinaire ;  he  would 
laugh  at  our  endless  pedantic  arguments  on  the 
exact  methods  and  subjects  which  are  best 
suited  for  children.  All  subjects  are  bad  in  the 
hands  of  incompetent  teachers,  and  the  value 


JEAN  JACQUES  ROUSSEAU,  NATUB  1719,  OBIIT  1778. 


150      THE   FEENCH   EENASCENCE 

of  even  the  best  methods  ahnost  entirely  depends 
on  the  value  of  the  teacher.  Whatever  subjects 
or  methods  may  be  adopted,  the  condition  of 
success  is  that  a  teacher  shall  study  and  respect 
the  individuality  of  his  pupil,  that  he  shall  draw 
out  the  powers  latent  and  dormant  in  the 
juvenile  soul. 

Ill 

The  lofty  idealism  of  Eousseau  is  combined 
with  the  most  minute  realism.  It  is  precisely 
because  Eousseau  possesses  such  high  aims  that 
his  teaching  is  so  concrete  and  so  scientific,  for 
it  is  obvious  that  such  a  concrete  knowledge  can 
only  be  gained  through  sympathy  and  imagina- 
tion. To  a  mere  pedant,  however  learned,  the 
soul  'of  a  child  will  never  yield  its  secrets. 
"  ifemile "  has  been  called  the  Eomance  of 
Education,  and  it  must  be  confessed  that  it  is 
often  a  wild  and  Utopian  romance,  but  this 
does  not  prevent  the  book  itself  from  being 
intensely  true.  Its  imaginary  characters,  Emile, 
Sophie,  and  the  Savoyard  priest,  are  only  an 
ingenious  but  necessary  device  which  gives  point 
to  the  treatment  of  educational  problems. 
Most  writers  on  education  are  content  to  give 
us  an  abstract  argument.  On  the  contrary, 
Eousseau  is  always  definite.    He  does  not  only 


ROUSSEAU'S   "EMILE"  151 

say  what  is  to  be  done,  but  how  it  is  to  be  done. 
He  likes  to  dramatize  his  lessons.  He  does  not 
evade  any  difficulties.  He  condescends  to  the 
humblest  and  the  most  minute  details  of  infant 
hygiene  and  diet  and  clothing.  We  hear  a 
great  deal  to-day  about  child-study,  and  about 
the  application  of  psychology  to  education,  but 
how  insignijB.cant  is  the  amount  which  we  have 
added  to  the  pioneer  work  of  the  Genevese 
thinker.  With  all  our  much-vaunted  methods, 
specialists  will  still  find  more  valuable  sug- 
gestions and  observations  in  "  Emile  '*  than 
in  the  vast  majority  of  treatises  of  our  modern 
pedagogues. 

IV 

With  all  this  wealth  of  detail,  Rousseau  never 
loses  sight  of  general  laws  and  principles,  and 
the  most  important  of  those  laws  is  the  law  of 
mental  development.  Rousseau  has  antici- 
pated by  a  hundred  years  the  theory  of  evolution 
in  its  relation  to  the  education  of  children.  He 
is  never  tired  of  reminding  us  that  education 
must  not  only  vary  with  every  child,  but  it 
must  be  adapted  to  every  stage  of  childhood. 
The  whole  plan  and  scheme  of  the  book  is  based 
on  a  scheme  of  "  progressive  "  training  :  first 
the  education  of  the  senses,  then  the  education 


152       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

of  the  intellect,  then  the  education  of  the  feelings, 
to  culminate  in  the  education  of  religion  and 
citizenship.  For  the  sake  of  method  and  exposi- 
tion, Rousseau  may  have  driven  too  far  a 
division  of  those  processes  which  in  real  life  are 
not  successive  but  simultaneous.  Like  every 
discoverer  of  an  important  truth,  Rousseau  may 
have  made  too  much  of  his  discovery,  but  he  is 
undoubtedly  right  in  his  general  contention  that 
education  must  be  considered  as  a  succession 
of  processes,  as  a  gradual  unfolding  of  several 
activities,  and  that  the  higher  activities  must 
be  built  up  on  a  secure  foundation  of  the  lower. 
Even  to-day  there  would  be  fewer  failures  in 
our  schools  if  teachers  did  more  carefully  keep 
in  mind  that  great  principle  of  progressive 
education.  We  would  not  then  see,  as  I  have 
recently  seen,  the  "  Georgics ''  of  Virgil — a 
treatise  on  the  technique  of  agriculture — ^taught 
in  a  Scottish  school  to  little  boys  of  thirteen,  nor 
would  we  see  the  "  Princess ""  of  Tennyson  in- 
flicted on  boys  of  fourteen. 

V 

The  fifty  pages  expounding  the  "  Creed  of  the 
Savoyard  Curate ''  ("  Profession  de  Foi  du 
Vicaire  Savoyard ")  have  given  rise  to  more 
heated   controversy  than  any   other  work   of 


ROUSSEAU'S   "ifeMILE"  153 

Kousseau,  except  the  "  Contrat  Social."  Those 
pages  still  remain  unsurpassed  as  a  plea  for  a 
natural,  non-dogmatic,  universal  reUgion.  All 
our  "  New  Theologians "  are  only  repeating 
what  Rousseau  has  said  once  for  all  in  simple, 
rhythmic,  impassioned  prose.  The  develop- 
ments on  the  Existence  of  God,  on  the  Immor- 
tality of  the  Soul,  on  the  Scill  Small  Voice  of 
Conscience,  on  the  Virtue  of  Toleration,  on  the 
Majesty  of  the  Gospel,  are  as  fresh  and  impressive 
to-day  as  when  they  were  published  in  1762. 
It  is,  therefore,  little  wonder  that  the  Savoyard 
Vicar  should  have  had  disciples  innimierable, 
in  literature  as  well  as  in  real  life.  Herder  and 
Lavater,  Kant  and  Fichte,  Madame  de  Stael 
and  Madame  Necker,  and  Jean  Paul  and 
Pestalozzi  have  all  been  following  in  the  wake 
of  Jean  Jacques.  The  Priest  in  "  Atala "' 
of  Chateaubriand,  the  Country  Vicar  of  Balzac, 
Jocelyn  of  Lamartine,  the  Bishop  in  Victor 
Hugo's  "  Miserables ''  are  all  replicas  of 
Rousseau's  Ideal  Priest. 

VI 

It  is  easy  to  point  out  the  obvious  short- 
comings of  **  Emile,"  nor  is  it  difficult  to  detect 
traces  of  the  mental  disorder  which  was  so  soon 
to  overcloud  and  finally  to  overwhelm  the  noble 


154      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

intellect  of  the  Genevan  philosopher.  Those 
who  believe  in  the  equality  of  sexes  cannot 
approve  of  the  training  given  to  Sophie.  Those 
who  believe  in  stern  discipline  will  be  severe  in 
their  condemnation  of  a  "  negative  "  education, 
where  liberty  threatens  to  degenerate  into 
anarchy.  Those  who  believe  that  religious 
education  cannot  be  started  too  soon  will  point 
out  the  grave  danger  of  postponing  it  until 
adolescence.  Of  course,  any  educational  system 
which  ignores  father  and  mother,  and  human 
fellowship,  must  be  highly  artificial.  "  Emile  '^ 
abounds  in  psychological  errors,  but  those  errors 
are  generally  too  obvious  to  be  dangerous,  and 
his  most  conspicuous  blunders  are  only  a  reaction 
against  the  tyranny  of  the  teacher  armed  with 
the  rod  and  against  the  tji:a,mij  of  the  preacher 
armed  with  the  Shorter  Catechism.  Even  the 
mistakes  of  a  man  of  genius  and  of  an  enthusiastic 
reformer  are  more  fruitful  than  the  common- 
places of  pedantry.  It  is  only  when  we  strike 
a  balance  of  the  blemishes  which  everybody 
can  see,  and  of  the  inspired  truths  which 
Rousseau  has  been  first  to  proclaim,  that  we 
shall  realize  the  value  of  one  of  the  imperishable 
monuments  of  modern  literature. 


MARIE  ANTOINETTE 
BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION 


MARIE    ANTOINETTE    BEFORE 
THE  REVOLUTION 

Mr.  Francis  Bickley  and  Lady  Younghusband 
have  added  two  more  volumes  to  the  vast 
accmnulated  literatm*e  on  Marie  Antoinette. 
The  French  Queen  has  inspired  many  a  master- 
piece, but  no  one  would  accord  that  distinction 
to  these  latest  biographies.  Of  Mr.  Bickley's 
little  book,  the  less  said  the  better.  As  for 
Lady  Younghusband^s  book,  it  is  uncritical, 
and  makes  no  attempt  to  sift  the  evidence. 
It  is  clumsily  composed,  and  makes  no  pretence 
of  being  a  coherent  narrative.  Yet,  with  all 
its  shortcomings,  the  volume  is  full  of  interesting 
matter,  and  the  critic  almost  feels  a  pang  of 
remorse  for  having  to  judge  harshly  a  dis- 
tinguished author  who  gives  him  the  welcome 
opportunity  of  considering  once  more  the  strange 
and  tragic  fortunes  of  the  most  ill-fated  of 
sovereigns. 

I 

Marie  Antoinette  is  not  only  a  fascinating 
subject,  she  is  also  a  perplexing  historical  pro- 
blem. It  seems  almost  impossible  to  reconcile 
the  character  which  was  given  her  in  her  life- 

156 


MARIE  ANTOINETTE  157 

time  with  the  portrait  which  has  been  drawn  of 
her  after  her  death.     Whilst  she  ruled  she  was 
the  best-hated  woman  of  France  :  hated  by  the 
Comrt,  hated  by  the  upper  classes,  hated  by  the 
bourgeoisie,  hated  by  the  common  people.    She 
was  made  mainly  responsible  for  most  of  the 
evils  which  befell  a  distracted  country.    Her 
martyrdom  was  sufficient  to  transform  those 
almost  universal  feelings  of  hatred  into  almost 
equally  unanimous  feelings  of  sympathy,  love, 
and  admiration.    She  seems  to  have  cast  an 
incantation  over  every  one  of  her  historians. 
Carlyle  becomes  almost  as  rhetorical  as  Burke. 
Goncourt,  most  realistic  and  most  cynical  of 
French  novelists,  becomes  a  sentimental  idealist 
as  soon  as  he  attempts  to  portray  his  heroine. 
M.  de  Nolhac,  although  he  sees  all  her  faults, 
condones  them  all.    Mr.  Hilaire  Belloc  is  one 
of  the  few  recent  historians  who  has  escaped  the 
spell  of  the  martyred  Queen.    He  emphasizes 
her  failings,  her  frivolity,  her  pride,  her  selfish- 
ness, her  indiscretion.    But  even  he  refuses  to 
pronounce  a   verdict,  even   he  pleads  the  ex- 
tenuating circumstances  of  an  inexorable  destiny. 
And  the  "  leitmotiv  "  of  Belloc's  striking  mono- 
graph is  simply  this  :    Marie  Antoinette's  life 
was    a    succession   of   mysterious   coincidences 
which  fatally  led  her  on  to  her  doom. 


158      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

II 

Born  on  All  Souls'  Day,  1755,  on  the  day  of 
the  destruction  of  Lisbon,  one  of  the  great 
catastrophes  of  history,  brought  up  strictly  at 
the  Court  of  Vienna  by  a  stern  mother,  the 
Austrian  princess  was  destined,  almost  from  the 
cradle,  for  the  most  illustrious  throne  of  Christen- 
dom. Her  marriage  was  to  seal  for  ever  the 
alliance  between  France  and  Austria.  It  is  true 
that  the  Habsburg  dynasty  had  been  for  centuries 
the  enemy  of  the  Bourbon  dynasty,  but  there 
had  arisen  since  Louis  XIV  another  hereditary 
enemy  far  more  odious  and  far  more  formidable 
than  Austria,  namely,  England  :  England  which 
had  humiliated  French  armies  in  every  part 
of  the  world ;  England  which,  by  the  treaty  of 
Paris,  had  robbed  France  of  her  fairest  dominions. 
It  was  against  England  that  the  new  alliance 
was  directed.  Marie  Antoinette  arrived  in 
France  at  fourteen  years  of  age,  and  was  received 
with  universal  acclamation.  But  her  very  first 
entrance  into  Paris  was  the  occasion  of  a  ghastly 
tragedy.  On  the  Place  Louis  ,XV,  which  was 
one  day  to  become  the  Place  de  la  Revolution, 
and  where  twenty-three  years  after  the  Queen 
was  to  ascend  the  scaffold,  one  hundred  and 
thirty-two  people  were  trampled  to  death,  and 
twelve  hundred  were  wounded. 


MARIE  ANTOINETTE  159 

When  those  tragic  festivities  came  to  an  end, 
the  child  Marie  Antoinette  found  herself  trans- 
ported without  transition  or  preparation  in  a 
hotbed  of  corruption  and  intrigue.  The  grand- 
father of  her  husband,  the  sinister  old  voluptuary, 
Louis  XV,  took  advantage  of  the  nuptial  cele- 
brations to  introduce  to  the  Court  the  latest 
^nd  most  scandalous  addition  to  his  harem. 
The  prostitute  Du  Barry  was  presented  and 
given  a  place  of  honour,  and  when  the  innocent 
Austrian  child  inquired  which  was  the  high 
Oourt  office  to  which  the  strange  lady  had  been 
appointed,  the  answer  was  that  her  office  was 
to  "  amuse  "  his  Majesty. 

The  young  girl  soon  learned  the  odious  truth, 
and  both  her  pride  and  her  innocence  revolted, 
^he  refused  to  recognize  Madame  Du  Barry,  and 
henceforth  the  whole  cabal  of  the  new  favourite 
was  up  in  arms  against  her.  Morally,  we  must 
sympathize  with  the  young  Princess,  but  politi- 
cally her  behaviour  was  an  irretrievable  blunder. 
The  enmity  of  the  young  mistress  of  the  old  King 
.was  to  be  the  first  link  in  the  chain  of  fatality. 

Ill 

The  second  link  in  the  chain  of  fatality  was  the 
political  wisdom  of  an  imperious  mother  forcing 
itself  on  the  loyalty  and  filial  piety  of  her 
.daughter. 


160      THE   FKENCH   EENASCENCE 

For  four  years  Marie  Antoinette  remained  the 
Princess  Koyal  of  France,  and  both  before  her 
accession  to  the  throne  and  after,  she  received 
the  constant  advice  of  Maria  Theresa.  The 
Austrian  Empress  sent  to  Paris  the  ablest  of  her 
diplomats,  Count  Mercy  Argenteau,  both  as  her 
own  confidential  agent  and  as  counsellor  to  her 
daughter.  Mercy  Argent eau's  correspondence 
with  the  mother  and  the  daughter  remains  to 
this  day  the  most  important  historical  source 
and  the  most  valuable  human  document  for  the 
biographer  of  Marie  Antoinette.  In  any  other 
circumstances  the  counsels  of  so  capable  a 
mother  and  of  so  trustworthy  and  so  acute  an 
adviser  would  have  been  an  invaluable  benefit, 
but,  under  the  peculiar  conditions  in  which 
Marie  Antoinette  was  placed  at  the  Court  of 
France,  those  counsels  proved  to  be  one  of  the 
causes  of  her  ruin.  For  the  one  idea  of  Maria 
Theresa  was  to  promote  the  Austrian  policy, 
which  was  soon  found  to  be  entirely  disastrous, 
and  which,  as  years  went  by,  became  more  and 
more  odious.  What  proved  even  more  fatal,  to 
further  her  purpose  Maria  Theresa  persistently 
induced  her  daughter  to  enter  the  political  arena,^ 
for  which,  by  temperament,  she  was  absolutely 
unfitted. 


MAEIE   ANTOINETTE  161 

IV 

In  1774,  at  nineteen  years  of  age,  Marie 
Antoinette  was  crowned,  or,  to  be  more  accurate, 
she  ascended  the  throne.  According  to  the 
strange  anti-feminist  French  theory,  a  French 
Queen  could  not  be  crowned  or  "  consecrated/* 
The  King  alone  was  anointed  with  the  sacred 
oil.  The  King  alone  was  ruler  by  the  grace  of 
God,  and  the  Queen  was  only  his  consort. 

The  whole  French  nation  was  eagerly  expect- 
ing an  heir  to  continue  the  most  august  and  most 
ancient  dynasty  of  Europe.  The  young  Queen 
herself  was  yearning  for  the  child  which  was  to 
satisfy  her  maternal  instinct,  and  which  was  to 
consolidate  her  position  in  her  adoptive  country 
and  bring  to  her  the  affections  of  the  French 
people.  It  was  soon  discovered  that  Louis  XVI 
could  not  make  her  a  mother. 

Even  the  most  superficial  study  of  Marie 
Antoinette's  character  proves  that  this  circum- 
stance was  largely  responsible  for  her  subsequent 
conduct.  If  from  the  first  Marie  Antoinette 
could  have  had  children,  she  would  probably 
have  become  an  excellent  mother,  she  would 
have  revealed  the  domestic  virtues  characteristic 
of  her  race,  and  she  would  certainly  have  avoided 
the  follies  which  disgraced  her  early  years.    As 


162      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

it  was,  not  being  absorbed  by  her  maternal 
duties,  and  seeking  an  outlet  for  her  super- 
abundant vitality,  she  plunged  into  a  vortex  of 
amusements,  disregarding  every  convention  and 
etiquette,  flirting  with  her  brother-in-law,  Count 
d'Artois,  a  notorious  debauchee,  appearing  in 
the  disguise  of  a  domino  at  promiscuous  dances, 
holding  up  her  husband  as  a  butt  to  public 
ridicule,  and  assisting  to  discredit  the  monarchy 
by  her  reckless  behaviour.  Fate  would  not 
allow  her  to  become  a  mother.  She  became 
instead  a  Queen  of  Fashion,  a  Queen  of  the 
Ballroom,  a  Queen  of  Cards,  and,  in  the  words 
of  her  own  brother.  Emperor  Joseph  II,  she 
transformed  the  palace  of  Versailles  into  a 
gambling  den. 


It  was  soon  discovered  that  the  intervention 
of  science  might  remove  the  impediment  which 
prevented  Louis  XVI  from  having  children. 
He  submitted  to  an  operation,  and  on  December 
19th,  1778,  Marie  Antoinette  had  her  first  child. 
At  once  she  decided  to  reform  her  ways.  It 
was  observed  that  the  frivolous,  vain,  reckless 
pleasure-seeker  had  become  an  exemplary  mother. 
But,   alas !    reform  had  come  too  late.    The 


MARIE   ANTOINETTE  163 

Queen  had  irretrievably  alienated  the  sympathies 
of  all  classes  of  the  population.  Moreover, 
the  reform  did  not  last. 

All  the  old  failings  of  her  character  soon  re- 
appeared on  the  surface.  She  became  more  ex- 
travagant than  ever.  In  spite  of  the  desperate 
state  of  the  national  finances,  she  induced  her 
husband  to  buy  for  her  the  palace  of  Saint  Cloud. 
She  extended  the  Trianon.  She  prided  herself 
more  than  ever  on  being  the  queen  of  fashion, 
the  arbiter  of  elegance,  and  she  started  the  most 
ridiculous  vagaries  in  dress.  She  paid  a  thousand 
francs  for  a  feather.  The  expenditure  for  her 
wardrobe  increased  from  120,000  francs  in  1776 
to  252,000  francs  in  1785. 

She  played  parts  with  incredible  unconscious- 
ness in  a  revolutionary  comedy,  such  as  "  The 
Mariage  de  Figaro,''  which  aimed  at  under- 
mining the  Old  Regime.  Worst  of  all,  she 
espoused  more  indiscreetly  than  ever  the  interests 
of  Austrian  policy,  and  she  caused  millions  of 
French  money  to  be  sent  as  an  "  indemnity"  to 
the  Austrian  capital. 

About  1785  her  unpopularity  had  reached  a 
climax.  A  sensational  and  scandalous  trial, 
probably  the  most  fateful  political  trial  of 
all  European  modern  history,  was  to  bring  that 
impopularity   to   a   final   test.    The   Diamond 


164      THE   FEENCH  RENASCENCE 

Necklace  Case  was  to  be  the  last  link  in  the  chain 
of  fatality,  before  the  final  catastrophe  of  the 
French  Revolution. 


VI 

For  more  than  a  hundred  years  publicists 
and  historians  all  over  Europe  have  been  busy 
devising  a  solution  of  the  Diamond  Necklace 
mystery,  and  trying  to  disentangle  the  conflicting 
mass  of  evidence.  Recent  investigations  have 
illumined  most  of  its  dark  places.  Divested 
of  minor  side  issues,  the  Diamond  Necklace 
Case  to-day  appears  very  simple,  as  simple  as 
a  classical  drama  in  which  all  the  unities  are 
observed,  and  where  we  have  mainly  to  deal 
with  the  elemental  passions  of  man. 

The  dramatis  personce  are  an  adventuress 
and  a  jeweller,  a  cardinal  and  a  queen.  The 
adventuress,  the  Countess  de  la  Motte,  is  the 
prime  mover  in  the  plot,  and  she  engineers  the 
whole  intrigue  with  diabolical  cleverness.  The 
Jew  Boehmer,  the  Cardinal  de  Rohan,  and 
Marie  Antoinette  are  but  tools  in  her  hands. 
The  plot  can  be  summed  up  in  a  few  lines.  On 
the  one  hand,  the  Hebrew  jeweller  wants  to  sell 
a  diamond  necklace  of  priceless  value.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  adventuress  wants  to  ap- 


MAEIE   ANTOINETTE  165 

propriate  the  wonderful  prize.  It  is  obvious 
that,  left  to  her  own  devices,  the  Countess  de  la 
Motte  could  never  have  go.t  possession  of  the 
Necklace.  She  could  only  secure  it  through 
the  influence  of  Cardinal  de  Rohan,  who  alone 
could  inspire  sufficient  confidence  in  the  jeweller, 
and  induce  him  to  part  with  his  treasure.  She 
therefore  persuaded  the  Cardinal  that  Marie 
Antoinette  eagerly  wanted  the  Necklace,  that 
she  dared  not  buy  it  openly  for  fear  of  public 
opinion,  that  she  would  be  grateful  if  the  Cardinal 
were  discreetly  to  negotiate  the  purchase, 
and  that  this  would  be  the  best  means  of  re- 
covering the  good  graces  of  the  Queen. 

The  plot  succeeds,  the  Cardinal  falls  an  easy 
prey,  and  buys  the  Necklace  on  behalf  of  the 
Queen.  The  Necklace  is  transferred  to  Countess 
de  la  Motte,  and  disposed  of  in  London  by  her 
accomplice.  The  theft  is  discovered,  and  the 
jeweller,  pressing  for  payment,  reveals  that 
an  adventuress,  surrounded  by  a  band  of 
malefactors,  has  used  the  name,  impersonated 
the  character,  and  forged  the  handwriting  of 
the  Queen  of  France.  Louis  XVI,  in  an  evil 
hour,  and  in  an  impulse  of  righteous  indignation, 
decides  to  avenge  the  honour  of  the  Queen 
and  the  majesty  of  the  throne.  The  Cardinal 
is    arrested  and    is    brought    to    trial    before 


166      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

the  High  Court  of  Parliament.  The  whole 
nation  takes  sides,  but  it  takes  sides  against 
Marie  Antoinette.  The  Parliament  uses  a 
unique  opportunity  of  humiliating  the  monarchy. 
The  Church  is  determined  to  defend  the  privileges 
of  the  ecclesiastical  order.  The  higher  nobility 
consider  it  their  duty  to  defend  one  of  their 
own  class.  The  trial  lasts  three  hundred  days, 
and  for  three  hundred  days  the  Court,  the 
Church,  the  nobility  are  dragged  in  the  mud. 
The  adventuress  is  condemned,  but  her  credulous 
victim  is  acquitted.  The  acquittal  of  the 
Cardinal  is  the  condemnation  of  the  Queen. 

It  has  been  well  said  that  the  Diamond  Neck- 
lace trial  sounded  the  knell  of  the  old  monarchy, 
that  it  was  the  beginning  of  the  French 
Revolution.  And  it  is  now  easy  to  see,  in  the 
light  of  later  events,  that  when  the  catastrophe 
did  come,  Marie  Antoinette  was  bound  to  be 
the  first  victim.  The  very  weakness  of  her 
husband  and  her  strength  of  will  were  to  be 
turned  against  her.  As  it  was  obvious  to  all 
that  Louis  XVI  was  but  an  instrument  in  her 
hands,  she  alone  was  to  be  held  accountable 
for  all  the  calamities  which  befell  the  monarchy 
and  the  nation,  she  alone  was  to  be  made 
responsible  for  the  opposition  to  the  Revolution 
and  for  the  armed  intervention  of  Europe. 


MIRABEAU 


MIRABEAU 

MiRABEAU  has  exercised  not  only  on  his  contem- 
poraries, but  on  posterity,  an  extraordinary 
fascination. 

Certainly,  I  admit  that  it  is  difficult  to  refrain 
from  admiring  this  presigeotus  and  striking 
personality,  but  it  must  also  be  admitted  that 
it  is  difficult,  judging  him  simply  by  the  actions 
of  his  private  and  public  life,  to  come  to  any 
other  conclusion  regarding  Mirabeau,  than  that 
he  is  one  of  the  most  infamous  scoundrels  in 
history.  One  might  almost  say  that  of  all  the 
legends  of  the  Revolution,  there  is  not  one  more 
fabulous,  or  more  legendary,  than  that  of 
Mirabeau  :  of  a  Byronian  hero,  of  a  mixture  of 
greatness  and  meanness,  of  generous  virtues  and 
degrading  vices.  Indeed,  I  look  in  vain  for  his 
virtues  either  public  or  private  ;  as  for  his  vices, 
I  see  them  flaunting  themselves  everywhere 
with  shameless  impudence.  In  the  same  way, 
it  would  be  difficult  to  name  a  single  vice  from 
which  Mirabeau  was  exempt.  Inveterate  lying 
and  habitual  plagiarism  are  only  venial  sins  to 
him.     He  is  hypocritical  and  mercenary.     He 

168 


MIEABEAU  169 

is  debauched,  utterly  depraved,  an  erotomaniac, 
scandalizing  by  his  orgies  even  a  generation  when 
debauch  was  the  fashion.  .  .  . 

Riquetti  may  or  may  not  be  of  Italian  origin, 
but  in  any  case  he  has  the  worst  vices  of  the 
Italians  of  the  Renascence,  in  particular  those 
of  duplicity  and  treachery.  Treason  is  as  natural 
a  weapon  to  him  as  the  dagger  to  the  Neapolitan 
bandit.  He  has  betrayed  every  cause,  public 
and  private  ;  betraying  his  father  in  favour  of 
his  mother  and  his  mother  in  favour  of  his 
father — ^when  it  was  to  his  interest  to  be  recon- 
ciled to  the  paternal  authority  ;  betraying  his 
wife  for  his  mistresses  and  his  mistresses  for 
Jiis  wife — when  the  question  of  money  became 
pressing ;  betraying  the  King  in  favour  of  the 
people  and  the  people  in  favour  of  the  populace. 
In  his  private  life,  his  treason  was  all  the  more 
insidious  because  he  made  such  a  parade  of 
sincerity  and  frankness.  In  his  public  life, 
his  treason  was  all  the  more  odious  because  his 
political  principles  were  invariable.  An  agent 
in  doubtful  transactions,  selling  successively 
libraries,  ministers  and  princes,  in  turn,  mean, 
vile,  arrogant,  impudent,  presumptuous,  greeting 
1789  as  providing  an  outlet  for  a  miserable 
career  that  seemed  without  an  issue,  fishing 
in  the    troubled    waters   of    revolutions,    one 


170       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

might  say  that  his  character  is  nothing  but  a 
tissue  of  vices  and  his  life  only  a  succession  of 
infamies. 

Mirabeau  has  been  compared  to  Milton's 
Satan.  The  comparison  is  certainly  flattering 
to  Mirabeau.  Cynical,  yes,  but  Satanic  never  I 
Milton's  Satan  is  distinguished  by  nothing  sa 
much  as  his  superb  pride,  and  a  certain  inde- 
scribable dignity.  The  dignity  and  pride  of 
Mirabeau,  on  the  contrary,  are  sunk  in  the  wreck 
of  his  other  virtues,  and  this  strange  "  Satan ''' 
sinks  to  the  level  of  even  begging  for  orders  of 
arrest  to  get  rid  of  his  creditors,  ready  to  lay  the 
blame  of  these  orders  on  his  father's  implacable 
cruelty. 

That  there  may  have  been  at  bottom,  in  the 
uttermost  depth  of  this  depraved  nature,  some 
generous  impulses  and  intentions,  noble  aspira- 
tions, virile  resolutions  and  an  indomitable  will,, 
all  contemporaries  agree,  and  why  deny  it  ? 
Let  us  by  all  means,  in  order  to  explain  why 
these  intentions  and  generous  instincts  and  im- 
pulses have  nearly  always  miscarried ;  why  this 
indomitable  will  has  ended  only  in  velleities,  or, 
rather,  in  cowardly  deeds  and  shameful  capitu- 
lations of  conscience,  let  us,  in  order  to  explain  this 
sad  drama,  this  miserable  struggle  from  which 
Mirabeau  always  comes  out  vanquished,  let  u& 


MIEABEAU  171 

plead  as  extenuating  circumstances  that  Mirabeau 
has  been  the  victim,  not  only  of  heredity  but 
also  of  education  and  surroundings. 

It  is  only  too  true  that  ancestral  heredity, 
education  and  social  influence  have  all  combined 
to  deprave  his  character  and  stifle  his  generous 
impulses.  ...  If  ever  man  were  born  with  vice 
inherent  in  him,  Mirabeau  was  that  man.  His 
father  was  an  eccentric,  debauched,  extravagant, 
and  among  a  thousand  other  extravagances  he 
was  the  tormentor  of  his  son.  His  mother  was 
impulsive,  a  confirmed  gambler,  staking  her 
children's  fortune  on  a  game  of  cards  !  Both 
father  and  mother,  moreover,  spent  their  lives 
quarrelling  and  bringing  actions  against  each 
other.  One  brother  was  a  dissolute  drunkard, 
handing  down  to  posterity  the  symbolical  nick- 
name of  "  Miraheau-tonneau."  One  of  his  sisters 
was  mad,  and  the  other  a  profligate.  To  sum  up, 
profligacy,  disorder,  and  divorce  are  the  sur- 
roundings which  give  young  Mirabeau  his  first 
experience  of  the  moral  and  social  world.  All 
these  things,  acting  on  an  ardent  and  terribly 
precocious  temperament — a  youth  spent  among 
gamblers,  low  houses  and  prisons,  could  only 
result  in  a  vicious  and  irremediably  corrupted 
nature. 

The  social  atmosphere  also  was  certainly  not 


172       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

of  a  kind  calculated  to  counteract  the  deleterious 
effects  of  heredity  and  education.  The  end  of 
the  eighteenth  century  provides  us  with  the 
spectacle  of  a  world  in  dissolution,  a  generation 
where  the  best  impulses  are  sterile,  ending  only 
in  an  impotent  sentimentality,  where  even  the 
emancipators,  the  Voltaires,  the  Rousseaus,  and 
the  Diderots,  are  poisoned  with  the  prevailing 
corruption  and  where  nothing  is  more  rare  than 
a  noble  character.  It  provides  us  with  the 
spectacle  of  an  aristocracy  having  no  longer  the 
discipline  either  of  war,  religion  or  honour, 
having  moreover  ceased  to  believe  even  in  itself. 
This  aristocracy  from  which  Mirabeau  sprang 
was  ripe  for  catastrophe,  so  ripe,  or,  to  be  more 
precise,  so  over-ripe,  that  it  did  not  even 
endeavour  to  defend  its  rights.  They  were 
carried  away  on  a  breath  of  wind,  on  a  wave  of 
enthusiasm,  on  the  fatal  August  night. 

The  victim  of  heredity,  of  education  and 
environment,  it  would  seem  that  nothing  was 
more  natural,  more  fatal  than  the  corruption  and 
depravation  of  Mirabeau,  nothing  more  im- 
probable than  the  legend  of  a  Mirabeau,  great- 
hearted, and  of  noble  character,  and  the  inspired 
genius  of  the  Revolution.  What  has  given  rise 
to  this  legend,  what  explains  the  magnetic  fascina- 
tion of  the  tribune,  what  explains  the  indulgence 


■*  'V^-'    • 


I "^■■^"" 


HONOB^  OABRIBL  BIQUETI  MIBABEAU,  MATUS   1749.     OBIIT  1701. 


174       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

of  biographers,  and  what  makes  the  depravation 
of  Mirabeau  so  incredible,  so  extraordinary,  so 
monstrous,  is  that  this  moral  rottenness  is 
joined  to  a  marvellous  mind,  and  a  clear-sighted, 
well-balanced  judgment.  The  sickening  fumes 
of  his  orgies  have  not  obscured  the  clearness  of 
his  intelligence  :  it  seems  with  Mirabeau  as  if 
his  character  and  his  mind  occupied  two  separate 
air-tight  compartments. 

The  gangrene  that  destroyed  his  moral  being 
did  not  affect  the  vitality  of  a  titanic  tempera- 
ment which  burned  without  being  consumed. 
Mirabeau  was  not  content  with  burning  the 
candle  at  both  ends,  but  flung  it  into  the  flames, 
and  it  seems  as  if  there  must  have  been  in  the 
tissue  of  his  constitution  some  incorruptible 
material,  some  asbestos  that  no  flame  could 
consume.  Nothing  could  dim  the  clearness  of 
his  vision.  Mirabeau,  though  lacking  moral 
principle,  has  very  definite  political  principles ; 
one  might  almost  say  with  M.  Faguet  that  he 
has  a  fixed  policy,  a  policy  that,  of  course,  he 
keeps  to  only  when  it  does  not  clash  with  his 
interests.  This  man,  a  slave  to  shameful  dis- 
solute passions,  seems  predestined  to  lead  men 
and  govern  states. 

In  bringing  out  the  glory  of  the  orator  much 
wrong  has  been  done  to  the  greatness  of  the 


MIRABEAU  175 

statesman.  Undoubtedly  Mirabeau  is  the 
incarnation,  the  symbol  even  of  political  elo- 
quence. I  do  not  know  at  the  same  time  if  the 
man  of  action  is  not  greater  than  the  man  of 
words.  Whatever  may  be  his  gifts  as  an  orator, 
his  fascinating  appearance,  his  leonine  head,  his 
vibrating  ringing  voice, — the  literary  form  of  his 
speeches  is  artificial  and  often  commonplace  ; 
all  the  tinsel  of  classic  rhetoric  is  to  be  found  in 
them  ;  they  continually  evoke  the  shades  of 
Marius  or  Sylla,  of  Caesar  or  Catiline. 

On  almost  every  page,  metaphors  such  as  the 
following  may  be  found  : — *'  He  climbs  to  the 
pinnacle  of  success  supported  on  the  double 
crutch  of  famine  and  paper-money."'  Moreover, 
however  great  may  be  his  eloquence,  there  are 
other  orators  of  the  Revolution,  such  as 
Vergniaud,  who  might  dispute  the  palm  with 
him.  On  the  other  hand,  as  a  statesman, 
Mirabeau  is  absolutely  unique.  Danton  himself 
does  not  come  near  him.  He  has  all  the  qualities 
which  make  a  great  leader  of  men  :  definite 
political  opinions,  strong  political  principles,  and 
at  the  same  time,  a  marvellous  flexibiUty  in  the 
means  he  employs  ;  a  genius  for  handling  men, 
tact,  and  a  sure  instinct  for  those  who  could 
serve  his  ends,  a  faculty  of  assimilating  im- 
mediately   the  work   of    others,  a   faculty  all 


176      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

the  more  precious  in  that  it  is  joined  to  an 
incomparable  power  of  work,  an  ahnost  prophetic 
penetration  and  contempt  of  formulas ;  the 
perception,  the  intuition  even,  of  the  possibilities 
of  the  moment — in  a  word,  a  far-sighted  policy 
and  political  methods  adapted  to  the  present 
hour.  Above  all,  we  have  in  him  this  strange 
spectacle  of  a  temperament  all  fire  and 
enthusiasm  put  to  the  service  of  a  moderate, 
prudent,  almost  doctrinal  policy.  So  great  a 
statesman  is  he  that,  if  any  man  could  have 
guided  and  kept  within  bounds  the  French 
Revolution,  Mirabeau  would  have  been  that 
man.  No  one  else  of  this  epoch  gives  us  the 
same  clear  feeling  that,  whatever  might  be  said, 
nothing  was  fatal  in  the  Revolution,  and  that 
mankind  was  above  the  fatality  of  events. 

What  destiny  reduced  this  man,  this  Titan, 
to  almost  complete  powerlessness  ?  Mirabeau's 
impotence  is  both  the  shame  and  the  tragedy 
of  his  existence  ;  it  is  the  honour  of  human  nature, 
it  is  the  honour  of  the  Constituant  Assembly  that 
it  was  always  distrustful  of  a  Catiline  given 
over  to  vice  and  crime.  Fascinated,  subjugated 
even  by  his  eloquence,  it  yet  refused  to  follow 
him. 

This  impotence  of  the  tribune  has  not  been 
suflS.ciently  brought  out.    Nothing  is  more  false 


MIRABEAU  177 

than  this  idea  which  appears  still  in  classic 
manuals  that  Mirabeau  has  been  the  inspirer 
and  the  governing  influence  of  the  Constituant 
Assembly.    As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  governed 
nothing.     His  popularity  outside  the  Assembly 
was  only  surpassed  by  his  lack  of  it  in  the 
Assembly.    On  that  point,  posterity  has  been 
too  ready  to  believe  his  own  bragging  :    "  My 
head  also  is  a  power.""    A  power  undoubtedly, 
but  a  power  more  potential  than  real.     On  the 
contrary,  we  may  believe  Mirabeau  when  he 
himself  says  that  he  plays  the  role  of  Cassandra, 
always  telling  truths  and  predicting  misfortune, 
and    never    being    listened    to.      Outside    the 
Assembly,  his  audience  too  frequently  applauded 
the  violence  of  his  rhetoric  while  rejecting  the 
moderation    of    his    views.     In   the    Assembly, 
some   project   was   too   often   rejected   simply 
because  it  was  supported  by  the  Count  of  Mira- 
beau.    "  The   Court,""   a   contemporary  writes, 
**  saw  in  him  only  a  demagogue,  the  nobility 
a  renegade,  the  majority  of  the  Assembly  an 
unprincipled    adventurer    with    whom    it    was 
dangerous    and    dishonourable    to    ally    itself."" 
And  what  conclusively  proves  the  discredit  that 
had  affected  Mirabeau  in  public  opinion  is  that, 
in  spite  of  the  canvassing  and  efforts  of  his 
friends,  he  was  only  called  to  the  dignity  of 


178     THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

President  of  the  Assembly  three  months  before 
his  death.  Forty-three  members  had  obtained 
this  honour  before  him. 

Mirabeau  knew  striking  triumphs,  such  as  his 
speech  on  the  Tax  on  the  Revenue,  but  these 
triumphs  were  of  short  duration.  I  repeat, 
when  we  look  into  the  matter  closely,  we  find 
he  did  not  direct  a  single  proceeding.  He  did 
not  carry  a  single  decisive  movement  against 
the  hostility  of  his  colleagues.  He  has  been  in 
the  history  of  the  Revolution  only  as  sounding 
brass  and  a  tinkling  cymbal. 

And  that  is  why  for  posterity  he  is  such  a 
memorable  example.  This  tragic  impotence  of 
the  most  magnetic  political  genius  and  the 
greatest  orator  of  modern  times  in  a  generation 
which  certainly  did  not  pride  itself  on  its  prudery, 
contains  a  great  moral  lesson :  that,  when  it  comes 
to  taking  part  in  the  governing  of  men,  the  most 
fascinating  and  powerful  genius  cannot  with  im- 
punity place  himself  above  the  most  elementary 
rules  of  the  human  conscience.  One  might  be, 
like  Bacon,  both  a  great  thinker  and  a  notorious 
knave  ;  one  might  be,  like  Napoleon,  a  great 
soldier  and  a  renowned  bandit ;  one  cannot  be, 
like  Mirabeau,  both  a  statesman  and  a  miserable 
adventurer. 


ROBESPIERRE 


ROBESPIERRE 


The  year  1793  stands  out  as  the  Annus  Mirabilis 
of  modern  history,  the  year  of  wonder  and  terror, 
of  victories  abroad,  of  massacres  at  home. 
During  those  fateful  months,  Maximilian 
Robespierre  is  the  absolute  ruler  of  France  until 
the  culminating  tragedy  of  the  Ninth  of  Ther- 
midor,  when,  with  shattered  jaw,  after  sixteen 
hours  of  agony,  he  is  dragged  to  the  guillotine 
where  he  had  sent  so  many  thousands  of  innocent 
victims. 

There  is  perhaps  no  other  character  who  has 
stood  so  conspicuously  in  the  limelight  of  history, 
and  who  yet  remains  so  mysterious  to  the  bulk 
of  mankind.  There  is  certainly  no  other  char- 
acter who  raises  so  many  perplexing  questions. 
Amongst  those  perplexing  questions  I  would 
submit  that  there  are  at  least  three  which  any 
student  of  the  French  Revolution  ought  to 
answer  if  he  is  to  understand  anything  in  the 
Reign  of  Terror. 

1.  How  is  it  that  a  man  who  is  generally 

180 


KOBESPIEERE  181 

represented  as  a  type  of  mediocrity,  a  man  with- 
out any  of  those  gifts  which  are  necessary  to 
play  a  conspicuous  part,  a  man  without  personal 
attractions,  without  charm,  without  the  gift 
of  oratory,  without  originality,  without  states- 
manship, how  is  it  that  such  a  man  should  have 
been  raised  to  the  pinnacle  of  power  ? 

2.  How  is  it  that  a  man  of  generally  peaceful 
and  humane  disposition,  a  poet  and  a  man  of 
letters,  timid  and  sentimental,  who  once  resigned 
his  position  as  a  judge  because  he  disapproved 
of  the  death  penalty,  how  was  such  a  man  trans- 
formed into  a  bloody  tyrant  ?  how  was  he 
brought  to  inflict  death  ruthlessly  and  indis- 
criminately upon  young  girls  and  old  men  and 
pregnant  women  ? 

3.  And,  most  difficult  of  all  questions,  how  is 
it  that  the  most  spirited  of  Continental  nations 
submitted  for  two  years  to  an  abominable 
tyranny,  which  would  have  spurred  into  rebellion 
even  Egyptian  fellaheen  ?  How  is  it  that  the 
most  frivolous  and  the  gayest  of  European 
capitals  was  made  to  submit  to  the  rule  of  a 
gloomy  Puritan,  whose  every  word  seemed  to  be 
a  challenge  to  the  national  temperament  ? 

An  exhaustive  answer  to  those  three  questions 
would  give  us  the  explanation  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary tragedy. 


182       THE  FEENCH  RENASCENCE 

II 

The  rise  of  Robespierre  to  supreme  power 
is  at  first  sight  one  of  the  paradoxes  of  history. 
All  the  other  actors  of  the  French  Revolution 
possessed  at  least  some  outstanding  quality 
which  helps  us  to  understand  their  influence. 
Robespierre  had  no  such  quality.  He  had 
none  of  the  titanic  power  of  Mirabeau  or  Danton. 
He  had  none  of  the  wit  of  Camille  Desmoulins. 
He  had  none  of  the  oratorical  gifts  of  the  ill- 
fated  Girondists.  He  cannot  even  lay  claim 
to  tlie  cynicism  and  vituperative  power  of 
Marat,  nor  to  the  fiendish  perversity  of  Fouche 
and   Talleyrand. 

Most  historians  are  agreed  that  the  secret  of 
his  power  and  popularity  lies,  above  all,  in 
his  absolute  integrity.  He  was  omnipotent 
because  he  was  supposed  to  be  incorruptible. 
And  the  explanation  is  no  doubt  true  so  far  as 
it  goes  ;  and  it  is  a  memorable  lesson  in  political 
conduct  to  all  statesmen,  present  and  future. 
It  is  a  striking  commentary  on  Montesquieu's 
dictum,  that  virtue  must  be  the  foundation 
of  democracy.  Robespierre's  rule  was  the 
"  dictatorship  of  virtue.''  In  a  city  where 
suspicion  was  rife  and  where  corruption  was 
rampant,  here  was  a  man  who  could  be  absolutely 
trusted.    In    an    age    of    equality,    where    all 


ROBESPIERRE  183 

superiority  of  rank  and  wealth  was  odious,  where 
to  be  called  an  aristocrat  meant  a  sentence  of 
death,  here  was  a  man  who,  although  invested 
with  plenary  power,  continued  to  live  in  Spartan 
simplicity.  Mirabeau  and  Danton,  with  all 
their  titanic  gifts,  were  distrusted  because  they 
were  known  to  be  venal.  Robespierre,  with 
all  his  mediocrity,  possessed  the  confidence 
of  the  people  because  even  his  worst  enemies 
could  not  suspect  him  of  bribery  or  corruption. 


Ill 

The  incorruptibility  of  Robespierre  is 
certainly  one  element  of  the  problem,  but  it 
is  not  the  whole  problem.  It  explains  why 
the  French  people  trusted  him  ;  it  does  not 
explain  why  they  believed  in  him. 

The  real  reason  why  the  Revolutionists 
believed  in  Robespierre  was  that  Robespierre 
believed  in  the  Revolution. 

The  whole  secret  of  Robespierre's  power  lies 
in  the  mystic  region  of  faith.  With  all  his 
inhumanity,  his  pedantry,  his  egotism,  his 
meanness,  his  vindictiveness,  his  cowardice, 
he  had  the  one  great  theological  virtue  of  faith — 
a  faith  unquestioning  and  unwavering.  And 
it  was  his  faith  and  not  his  works  which  saved 


184      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

him.  When  everything  was  hanging  in  the 
balance,  when  the  Revolution  was  threatened 
by  foes  internal  and  external,  the  people  could 
turn  to  the  obscure  deputy  from  Arras,  firm 
like  a  rock,  confident  of  victory,  biding  his  time, 
challenging  danger. 

And  not  only  had  he  faith,  but  his  faith  was 
embodied  in  a  creed,  in  a  doctrine  sufficiently 
vague  to  attract  temperaments  the  most  diverse, 
sufficiently  precise  to  unite  his  believers  in  a 
common  formula.  Robespierre  is,  from  first 
to  last,  the  consistent  disciple  of  Rousseau. 
He  preaches  the  gospel  according  to  Jean  Jacques. 
The  "  Social  Contract "  sums  up  his  poUtical 
profession.  The  "  Confession  of  the  Savoyard 
Vicar  "  sums  up  his  religious  creed. 


IV 

The  two  explanations  just  given  may  account 
for  Robespierre's  unlimited  influence,  but  they 
do  not  explain  the  horrors  of  the  Reign  of 
Terror.  They  do  not  explain  how  Robespierre 
should  have  become  responsible  for  the  most 
sanguinary  tyranny  of  modern  times.  That 
Robespierre  was  naturally  humane  cannot  be 
doubted.  He  had  been  steeped  in  the  sentimental 
literature  of  the  times,  and  his  favourite  author 


ROBESPIERRE  185 

was  the  most  sentimental  of  all.  He  was  so 
sensitive  to  suffering  that,  if  we  are  to  believe 
his  sister,  he,  for  months,  mourned  the  death 
of  a  favourite  pigeon.  Although  he  was  afraid 
of  the  sex,  although  as  much  as  John  Knox 
he  abhorred  the  regiment  of  women,  he  was 
idolized  by  the  women  about  him,  by  his  sister, 
by  the  wiie  and  daughters  of  the  carpenter 
Duplay.  And  although  he  was  no  Sociahst, 
although  he  was  a  strong  believer  in  the  rights 
of  property,  he  sincerely  felt  for  the  people. 

He  was  essentially  what  we  would  call  to- 
day a  pacifist  and  a  philanthropist.  When  a 
war  with  England  was  in  the  balance,  he  firmly 
declared  for  peace.  As  late  as  1791  he  made 
an  eloquent  speech  against  the  death  penalty. 
Yet  this  pacifist,  this  opponent  of  the  death 
penalty,  eventually  reduced  terror  to  a  principle 
and  made  the  guillotine  an  instrument  of  govern- 
ment. 

The  only  explanation  is  to  be  found  in 
Robespierre's  fanaticism.  He  probably  illus- 
trates better  than  any  other  modern  states- 
man the  destructive  influence  of  rehgious  bigotry. 
There  is  no  temperament  which  is  so  completely 
inimical  to  all  feelings  of  humanity,  which 
is  so  invariably  brought  into  play  to  justify 
every  excess  of  cruelty.     For  the  religious  fanatic, 


186      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

obsessed  by  his  creed,  is  ever  ready  to  sacrifice 
every  other  human  consideration  to  the  triumph 
of  his  principles.  He  is  ready  to  pour  rivers  of 
innocent  blood,  he  is  ready  to  plunge  his  country 
into  civil  war  to  secure  the  domination  of  his 
sect.  He  is  ever  ready  to  destroy  the  body  in 
order  to  save  the  soul.  Fanaticism  may  be 
more  or  less  enlightened,  the  creed  may  be 
more  or  less  beneficent,  but,  from  the  moment 
the  religious  enthusiast  is  prepared  to  employ  the 
power  of  the  State  to  impose  his  religion,  the 
result  is  almost  invariably  the  same. 

Robespierre  believed  that  the  Revolution 
was  not  merely  a  political  upheaval,  but  that 
it  was  a  revelation  from  on  high,  and  that  it 
implied  a  new  religion.  His  one  ambition  was 
to  establish  on  earth  the  reign  of  virtue,  the 
Cult  of  the  Supreme  Being,  the  Immortality 
of  the  Soul.  And  he  also  saw  that  the  establish- 
ment of  the  new  Deism  was  imperilled  by  power- 
ful enemies  abroad  and  by  more  relentless 
enemies  at  home.  He  was,  therefore,  perfectly 
consistent  in  insisting  that  those  enemies  should 
be  crushed  at  whatever  cost.  It  was  the  old 
argument,  and  the  old  metaphor  of  the  surgical 
operation  to  be  performed  on  the  body.  It 
was  necessary  to  sacrifice  the  putrescent  limb 
if  the  whole  body  politic  was  to  be  preserved. 


ROBESPIERRE  187 

It  was  necessary  to  sacrifice  a  few  thousands 
of  atheists  and  libertines  to  redeem  the  millions. 
Robespierre  belongs  to  the  same  type  as 
Torquemada  and  Philip  II,  as  John  Knox  and 
Calvin.  He  is  a  combination  of  the  Catholic 
Inquisitor  and  the  Protestant  Puritan.  He  is 
the  most  rigid  and  ruthless  of  religious  bigots. 


But,  granting  that  Robespierre  was  a  bitter 
fanatic  and  that  his  fanaticism  was  destructive 
of  his  humanity,  there  still  remains  to  explain 
how  a  witty  and  gifted  people,  in  an  age  of 
enlightenment,  should  have  submitted  to  the 
despotism  of  this  Puritan  Inquisitor ;  how 
inside  the  National  Convention  600  deputies 
were  cowed  into  abject  compliance  ;  how  out- 
side the  Convention  a  whole  people  obeyed  the 
oracles  of  the  sinister  pedant  and  pontiff.  The 
problem  must  be  admitted  to  be  a  most  difficult 
one,  and  a  thinker  who  would  solve  it  would 
explain  both  the  paradox  of  Robespierre  and 
the  paradox  of  French  history. 

I  would  submit  that  the  only  possible 
explanation  is  to  be  found  in  the  double  strain 
which  runs  through  the  French  character. 

We  are  too  apt  to  forget  that  France  is  not 


188     THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

merely  the  country  of  wit  and  epigram,  of  the 
chanson  and  the  salon.  Deep  down  in  the 
national  temperament  there  is  a  Celtic  fervour, 
a  relentless  idealism,  a  religious  enthusiasm, 
a  theocratic  and  fanatic  spirit.  No  one  will 
understand  French  history  who  does  not  realize 
that  the  French  people  are  by  far  the  most 
religious  people  of  modern  Europe.  It  is  this 
religious  and  theocratic  spirit  which  explains 
the  human  sacrifices  of  the  Druids  in  the  ancient 
forests  of  Gaul,  which  explains  the  Gothic 
cathedrals  and  the  scholastic  philosophy,  the 
Crusades  and  Joan  of  Arc.  It  is  this  spirit 
which  explains  the  wars  of  religion.  It  is  this 
spirit  which  explains  Calvin — ^the  French  father 
of  Swiss  and  Scottish  Presbyterianism.  It  is 
the  same  spirit  which  explains  the  expulsion 
of  the  Huguenots  and  the  bigotry  of  the 
Jansenists. 

And  my  contention  is  that  it  is  the  same 
spirit  which  asserts  itself  in  the  theocratic 
experiments  of  Robespierre,  in  his  Cult  of  the 
Supreme  Being.  The  special  form  which  the 
terror  did  take,  its  bloody  excesses,  the 
power  it  gave  to  a  handful  of  scoundrels,  are 
sufficiently  explained  by  the  prevailing  anarchy 
which  emptied  the  prisons  of  their  criminal 
inmates.     It    is    a    mere    accident    of    history, 


ROBESPIERRE  189 

which  often  repeats  itself  whenever  the  social 
order  collapses,  and  which  quite  recently- 
repeated  itself  during  the  chaos  of  the  Russian 
Revolution. 

But  the  Reign  of  Terror  itself,  apart  from  the 
special  forms  it  assumed,  is  not  a  mere  accident ; 
it  was  pre-eminently  a  French  phenomenon. 
It  was  a  necessary  revelation  of  national 
character.  It  was  one  of  the  periodic  outbursts 
of  French  religious  fanaticism.  Of  that  out- 
burst, of  that  revelation  of  the  French  theocratic 
spirit,  Robespierre  will  remain  for  ever  the  most 
extraordinary,  the  most  repellent,  and  the 
most  perplexing  illustration. 

Disconcerting  irony  of  events  !  If  Robespierre 
had  been  born  in  another  age  and  in  another 
country — say,  in  Scotland  or  England — he 
would  have  been  a  harmless  and  highly  respected 
professor  of  Dogmatic  Theology  in  a  Calvinistic 
college,  or  an  incorruptible  Under-Secretary 
of  State  in  Mr.  Asquith's  Cabinet.  Being  born 
in  the  sceptical  France  of  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  in  an  age  which  was  out 
of  joint,  he  was  destined  to  become  in  scecula 
sceculorum,  the  incarnation  of  diabolical  cruelty, 
a  monster  of  iniquity. 


THE  REAL  NAPOLEON 


THE   REAL  NAPOLEON 


There  is  probably  no  historical  character  on 
whom  so  much  has  been  written  as  on  Napoleon. 
The  last  twenty  years  especially  have  witnessed 
in  every  country  a  veritable  flood  of  Napoleonic 
literature.  In  France  Memoirs  of  Napoleon 
sell  even  better  than  objectionable  novels,  and 
their  market  is  world-wide.  Even  in  England 
there  is  an  increasing  output  of  Napoleonic 
books,  and  the  historical  schools  of  our 
Universities  give  precedence  to  the  little  Corsican 
over  the  heroes  of  national  history. 

Amongst  the  innumerable  volumes  which 
have  thus  been  added  to  that  Napoleonic 
literature  one  book  stands  out  as  having 
completely  changed  our  view  of  the  Emperor's 
personality.  I  am  referring  to  the  masterpiece 
of  Monsieur  Arthur-Levy,  "  Napoleon  Intime."" 
"  Napoleon  Intime  '"  is  the  work  of  a  distin- 
guished business  man,  and  not  of  a  professional 
historian,  and  for  a  long  time  professional  and 
academic    historians  have   tried    to   ignore   it^ 

192 


THE  REAL  NAPOLEON  193 

But  its  conclusions  have  gradually  made  their 
way,  and  are  to-day  more  and  more  generally 
accepted  by  those  best  qualified  to  judge. 
Quite  recently  the  greatest  historian  of  con- 
temporary France,  Count  Vandal,  left  on  record 
his  appreciation  of  the  unique  value  of  Monsieur 
Levy's  research. 

In  order  to  put  the  character  of  Napoleon 
in  an  entirely  different  light,  all  that  the  author 
has  had  to  do  has  been  to  study  his  hero,  not 
in  his  public  activities,  but  in  his  private  life, 
in  his  home  surroundings,  in  his  capacity  as 
a  son  and  a  husband,  as  a  brother  and  a  friend. 
We  are  often  told  that  the  private  life  of  a  great 
man  does  not  concern  us,  and  English  historians 
do  not  like  to  pry  into  the  intimacy  of  their 
national  heroes.  For  instance,  the  historians 
of  Wellington  in  their  voluminous  biographies 
carefully  refrain  from  telling  us  anything  of 
the  love  affairs  of  the  Iron  Duke.  On  the  other 
hand,  French  historians  instinctively  have 
always  shown  much  less  reticence.  They  have 
always  felt  that  it  is  the  private  man  that  gives 
the  key  to  the  public  man.  Monsieur  Arthur- 
Levy  has  proved  once  more  that  the  French 
instinct  is  a  right  one,  at  least  from  the  point 
of  view  of  historical  truth,  and  that,  so  far  as 
Napoleon  is  concerned,  whereas  the  soldier  and 


194       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

Emperor  is  only  an  actor  playing  a  part  on  the 
stage  of  universal  history,  his  real  personality 
and  humanity  are  revealed  to  us  in  his  love 
letters,  in  his  domestic  correspondence,  in  the 
intimacy  of  his  home  life. 


II 

The  main  conclusion  of  Monsieur  Arthur-Levy 
may  be  summed  up  in  the  one  contention  that 
the  truth  about  Napoleon's  character  is  exactly 
the  reverse  of  the  truth  which  hitherto  has  been 
universally  accepted. 

It  is  universally  assumed  that  Napoleon  was, 
above  all,  a  man  of  blood  and  iron,  that  the 
intellectual  side  of  his  nature  and  his  formidable 
will  power  had  been  developed  at  the  expense 
of  all  human  feeling.  Monsieur  Levy,  on  the 
contrary,  conclusively  proves  that  the  emotional 
side  of  Napoleon's  character  was  as  strongly 
developed  as  the  intellectual,  that  the  tender 
passions  were  as  active  and  intense  as  the  manly 
passions,  and  that  as  a  lover  Napoleon  might 
almost  be  described  as  a  sentimentalist. 

Again,  it  is  the  universal  opinion  that  Napoleon 
was  a  kind  of  miracle,  a  ''  monstrum  "  in  the 
Latin  sense,  and  a  '*  Superman "  in  the 
N"ietzschean    sense ;     that    he    was    a    savage 


THE  REAL  NAPOLEON  195 

Corsica?!!  whom  circumstances  brought  to  rule 
^ver  a  civilized  community  :  in  one  word,  that 
he  was  not  normal,  but  abnormal.  Monsieur 
Levy,  on  the  contrary,  proves  that  Napoleon 
is  entirely  normal ;  that  his  greatness  consists, 
not  in  his  possessing  qualities  of  which  the 
average  man  is  deprived,  but  in  his  possessing, 
in  the  highest  degree  and  in  their  fullness,  all 
the  characteristics  of  the  ordinary  man. 

And,  finally,  it  is  the  general  opinion  that 
Napoleon  recognized  no  rule  but  his  own  will ; 
that  he  trampled  down  every  law,  human  and 
divine;  that  he  was  like  an  elemental  force 
.of  nature,  uncontrolled  and  unrestrained. 
Monsieur  Arthur-Levy  proves  that  Napoleon 
was  bound  by  the  rules  and  conventions  of 
commonplace  morality  ;  that  he  possessed  not 
.only  the  virtues  which  make  the  successful 
business  man,  hard  work,  order,  method, 
integrity,  but  also  the  domestic  and  private 
virtues,  integrity,  filial  piety,  loyalty  to  friends, 
honesty. 

There,  according  to  our  author,  lies  the 
supreme  morality  of  Napoleon's  career.  He 
is  not  an  exception  to  the  law,  but  he  confirms 
it.  He  does  not  challenge  morality,  but 
strengthens  it.  If  so  prodigious  and  unique 
;A  career  can  at  all  be  adduced  as  an  example 


196       THE  FEENCH  EENASCENCE 

and  an  illustration  to  point  a  lesson,  Napoleon 
can  only  be  adduced  by  those  who  believe  in 
the  accepted  foundations  of  moral  and  social 
life.  Napoleon  did  not  take  any  short  cuts  to 
power.  He  took  the  royal  road.  He  is  not  a 
hero  according  to  the  heart  of  Nietzsche  ;  he 
is  rather  a  hero  of  Plutarch.  One  might  almost 
say  he  is  a  hero  conforming  to  the  middle -class 
standard  of  Mr.  Samuel  Smiles.  He  achieved 
greatness  because  he  was  a  good  son  and  a 
loyal  friend,  an  honest,  hard-working  bourgeois. 
A.nd  he  only  forfeited  greatness  when,  through 
the  abuse  of  power,  he  lost  those  qualities  and 
virtues  which  had  raised  him  to  the  pinnacle. 
Considered  in  that  light,  Napoleon  may  appear 
a  less  epic  and  a  less  poetic  figure,  but  he  becomes 
more  human,  more  intelligible,  more  intensely 
interesting  to  the  philosopher,  because  more 
on  a  level  with  eternal  human  nature. 


Ill 

Let  us  first  consider  Napoleon  in  his  relation 
to  women.  We  have  had  endless  books  on 
the  love  intrigues  of  the  Emperor.  We  are 
constantly  told  of  his  cynicism,  of  his  brutality, 
but  we  have  had  no  single  exhaustive  study  on 
the  one  true  love  story  of  his  life,  on  his  all- 


THE  KEAL  NAPOLEON  197 

absorbing  passion  for  Josephine.  Yet  there  are 
few  love  stories  more  fascinating  in  the  annals 
of  human  passion.  And,  by  virtue  of  this  one 
central  episode  in  his  life,  Napoleon  is  entitled 
to  rank  as  one  of  the  great  lovers  of  literature. 
For,  even  considered  merely  as  literature,  his 
love  letters  do  take  a  very  high  place.  They 
are  as  eloquent  as  the  Letters  of  Mademoiselle 
de  Lespinasse,  and  they  have  a  much  more 
genuine  ring.  Lockhart,  in  his  biography  (in 
**  Everyman's  Library "),  which,  after  eighty- 
j&ve  years,  remains  one  of  the  best  summary 
accounts  of  Napoleon's  career,  may  object  to 
their  "  indelicacy,"  but  he  forgets  that  a  Southern 
Corsican  temperament  and  a  Revolutionary 
age  were  not  exactly  conducive  to  reticence 
and  restraint. 

Very  often  in  the  biography  of  statesmen 
and  rulers  and  thinkers  we  find  that  Love  and 
ambition  are  mutually  exclusive.  Love  plays 
little  part  in  the  lives  of  Lord  Bacon,  of 
William  Pitt,  of  Frederick  the  Great,  as  it 
plays  no  part  whatever  in  the  lives  of  the  supreme 
philosophers,  inveterate  bachelors,  such  as 
Descartes,  Spinoza,  and  Kant.  On  the  contrary, 
Love  has  been  the  one  supreme  event  in 
Napoleon's  youth.  In  love,  I  repeat  it.  Napoleon 
is  a  sentimentalist.     His  passion  for  Josephine 


198       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

burst  out  at  twenty-six  years  of  age  with  all  the 
violence  of  a  first  love,  and  for  the  time  being 
fills  his  whole  nature.  His  military  triumphs 
are  all  laid  at  the  feet  of  the  adored.  But, 
alas  !  that  first  love  was  also  destined  to  be 
the  last,  and  that  great  romance  was  also 
destined  to  be  a  great  tragedy.  For  the  passion 
of  Napoleon  was  not  requited.  The  Creole 
Society  woman,  the  "  mondaine  "  and  "  demi- 
mondaine ""  despised  the  little,  lean,  haggard, 
upstart  Corsican.  Josephine  was  not  only 
frivolous  and  heartless  ;  she  is  now  proved  to 
have  been  unfaithful  almost  on  the  morrow 
of  her  marriage.  She  is  primarily  answerable 
for  the  sad  change  which  took  place  in  Napoleon's 
attitude  to  women,  and  in  his  attitude  to  life. 
He  left  Italy  a  naive  enthusiast.  He  returned 
from  Egypt  a  disillusioned  cynic.  He  forgave 
Josephine,  as  he  generally  forgave  those  who 
wronged  him,  because  magnanimity  was  part 
of  his  nature,  but  he  could  not  forget  her  betrayal. 
The  evil  done  was  irreparable.  Josephine  had 
inflicted  an  incurable  wound.  Henceforth  the 
character  of  Napoleon  is  hardened,  and  is 
impervious  to  the  softer  emotions.  Hence- 
forth the  epigram  which  we  find  in  his  early 
Dialogue  on  Love  truly  expresses  his  attitude  : 
"  I  believe  that  Love  is  harmful  both  to  Society 


THE  REAL  NAPOLEON  199 

and  to  the  individual.  I  believe  that  Love 
does  more  evil  than  good  ''  (Yung,  "  Bonaparte 
and  his  Times,"  page  75). 


IV 

It  is  especially  in  his  relations  to  his  mother, 
his  brothers  and  sisters  that  Napoleon's  character 
reveals  itself.  A  great  deal  of  irrelevant 
nonsense  has  been  written  about  his  "  Corsican 
clannishness."  It  would  be  more  correct  to 
say  that  he  had  a  Frenchman's  sense  of  what 
is  due  to  the  family.  In  this  repect  his  letters 
of  1795  and  1796  are  most  interesting  reading. 
When  he  is  appointed  to  the  command  of  Paris, 
and  when  his  financial  difficulties  are  at  an  end, 
his  first  thought  is  for  those  who  are  near  and 
dear  to  him.  The  following  extracts  from  his 
correspondence,  which  I  take  from  Mr.  Levy's 
volume,  are  just  the  kind  of  notes  which  one 
would  expect  from  an  exemplary  French 
bourgeois. 

He  writes,  on  October  18th,  1795:  "A 
certain  citizen.  Billon,  who,  I  am  told,  is  known 
to  you,  wishes  to  marry  Paulette  ;  that  citizen 
is  without  means.  I  have  written  to  mamma 
that  she  must  not  think  of  it.  I  shall  make 
fuller  inquiries  to-day." 


200       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

On  November  1st :  "  Lucien  is  War  Com- 
missioner of  the  army  of  the  Rhine.  Louis  is 
staying  with  me.     I  think  he  is  writing  to  you. 

"  Farewell,  my  dear  friend.  Give  my  love 
to  your  wife  and  Desiree.'' 

On  November  9th  :  "  The  family  are  in  need 
of  nothing.  I  have  sent  them  money,  bank- 
notes, etc.'" 

On  November  17th :  "  It  is  just  possible 
that  I  may  get  the  family  to  come.  Give  me 
a  more  detailed  account  of  your  doings  and  of 
those  of  your  wife  and  Eugenie.  The  only 
hardship  I  feel  is  that  you  are  far  from  here 
and  I  am  deprived  of  your  company." 

December  31st :  "  You  ought  to  have  no 
uneasiness  whatever  about  the  family.  They  are 
abundantly  provided  with  everything.  Jerome 
arrived  yesterday  with  a  general  (Augereau). 
I  am  going  to  enrol  him  in  a  college,  where  he 
will  be  well  looked  after."' 

He  was  a  model  son,  although  he  never  was 
a  favourite  with  his  mother,  although  she  often 
took  his  brothers'  side,  although  she  never 
believed  in  him  as  the  humblest  of  his  soldiers 
did  believe  in  his  star,  although  even  at  the 
Imperial  Court  she  went  on  saving  money 
against  the  catastrophe  which  she  was  always 
anticipating.     On  his  father's  death — he   died 


THE  REAL  NAPOLEON  201 

prematurely,  like  Napoleon  himself,  from  the 
hereditary  disease,  cancer  of  the  stomach — he 
was  the  providence  of  his  relatives.  As  a 
young  man  of  nineteen  he  supported  his  younger 
brother  Lucienon  his  meagre  lieutenant's  pay,  and 
he  imposed  upon  himself  the  hardest  privations. 
He  not  only  looked  after  the  material  interests 
of  his  sisters,  trying  to  establish  them  in  life, 
but  almost  before  he  attained  his  majority  he 
had  assumed  full  responsibility  as  head  of  the 
family.  He  showed  infinite  patience  to  the 
vagaries  of  his  sisters,  to  the  absurd  demands 
of  his  brothers  ;  and  he  used  to  say  that  he 
had  more  trouble  in  ruling  his  relations  than 
in  ruling  his  Empire.  His  sisters  claimed  all 
the  privileges  of  members  of  the  Imperial  family, 
without  accepting  any  duties  or  restraints. 
Pauline  behaved  like  a  courtesan,  and  she 
shocked  even  immoral  Italy  with  the  scandal 
of  her  extravagant  amours.  His  brothers 
claimed  the  thrones  of  Europe  as  their  due 
inheritance,  and  at  the  same  time  they 
pretended  to  govern  without  any  regard  to  the 
policy  of  the  Empire. 

V 

It  may  be  objected  that  although  Napoleon 
may  have  been  exemplary  in  the  narrow  circle 


202       THE  FRENCH  EENASCENCE 

of  the  family,  it  is  not  proved  thereby  that  he 
was  bound  by  the  rules  of  ordinary  human 
morality.  After  all,  even  monsters  like  Fouche, 
Napoleon's  Minister  of  Police,  who,  as  a 
Terrorist,  sent  thousands  to  the  guillotine, 
are  often  found  to  practise  the  domestic  virtues. 
The  simple  answer  to  this  objection  is  that 
Napoleon's  obedience  to  moral  rule  was  not 
confined  to  the  narrow  circle  of  the  home,  but 
that  in  every  other  sphere  he  revealed  the 
commonplace  human  characteristics.  He  was 
equally  admirable  as  a  student  at  college,  as 
a  friend,  and  as  a  citizen. 

To  confine  ourselves  only  to  two  of  the 
elemental  virtues,  he  was  supremely  generous 
and  magnanimous,  and  he  was  unflinchingly 
honest.  He  never  forgot  a  benefit  conferred, 
and  in  his  last  will,  written  on  the  rock  of  St, 
Helena,  he  remembered  acts  of  kindness  received 
in  his  early  years.  He  again  and  again  forgot 
and  forgave  injuries,  and  he  possessed  none  of 
the  Corsican's  traditional  vindictiveness.  It 
was  this  very  generosity  which  probably  proved 
ultimately  fatal  to  him,  which  was  the  cause  of 
his  imprisonment  and  induced  him  to  surrender 
to  the  English  Being  magnanimous  himself y 
he  assumed  magnanimity  in  his  enemies. 


THE  REAL  NAPOLEON  203 

VI 

But  perhaps  the  most  starthng  quality  in  young 
Bonaparte  is  his  abnost  superhuman  honesty. 
In  Italy,  when  everybody  was  grabbing  round 
him,  he  alone  kept  his  hands  clean.  His 
financial  integrity  during  the  Italian  campaign 
in  1796  and  1797  is  truly  heroic.  He  was  in 
supreme  command  of  the  Army.  He  had  been 
given  absolute  political  and  diplomatic  power. 
A  hundred  million  francs  passed  through  his 
hands.  In  Paris  Barras  and  Fouche  were 
amassing  huge  fortunes.  In  Italy  every  general 
was  guilty  of  extortion  and  peculation  with 
the  connivance  of  authority.  Napoleon  alone 
would  not  demean  himself,  and  would  not 
accept  any  "  commissions  '*  or  perquisites.  He 
remained  rigidly  honest,  and  returned  to  Paris 
a  poor  man.  His  schemes  nearly  failed  for 
want  of  money  at  the  crisis  of  his  career,  at  a 
time  when  every  political  support  had  to  be 
bought.  Bonaparte  may  have  thought  that, 
after  all,  honesty  was  the  best  policy.  He 
may  have  remembered  that  part  of  the  strength 
of  Robespierre  was  his  incorruptibility.  But 
this  does  not  in  the  slightest  degree  detract 
from  the  credit  which  is  due  to  his  magnificent 
integrity. 

The  reader  may  well  ask  how  it  is  that  this 


204       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

interpretation  of  Napoleon's  personality  is  so 
generally  ignored,  and  why  even  his  admirers 
so  entirely  overlook  the  "  bourgeois ""  side  of 
his  character.  The  simple  explanation  is  that 
there  are  two  Napoleons,  and  there  is  little  in 
common  between  them.  There  is  the  young 
general  and  First  Magistrate  of  the  Republic, 
and  there  is  the  Emperor.  There  is  the  hero 
who  achieved  greatness,  and  there  is  the  ruler 
who  was  corrupted  by  greatness.  The  character 
of  Bonaparte  was  very  soon  destroyed  and 
transformed  by  the  necessities  of  statecraft, 
and  still  more  by  the  use  and  abuse  of  despotism, 
by  the  poisonous  atmosphere  of  servility  and 
flattery.  But  surely  the  true  character  of  the 
man  is  his  original  character.  Surely  when 
we  want  to  describe  the  constitution  of  an 
individual  we  do  not  take  it  after  it  has  been 
ruined  by  disease  ;  we  take  it  in  its  strength 
and  power.  Similarly,  if  we  want  to  know  the 
real  Napoleon,  we  must  study  him  in  his  radiant 
youth,  in  the  epic  years  of  Italy  and  Egypt,  as 
he  appeared  to  a  dazzled  world,  the  conqueror 
of  Italy,  the  champion  of  the  Revolution,  the 
restorer  of  order  and  liberty.  The  true  Napoleon 
is  the  slim,  nervous,  haggard  soldier  of  1796, 
the  young  man  who  saved  France,  not  the  obese 
and  self-indulgent  despot  who  oppressed  Europe. 


NAPOLEON   AS  A  SOCIALIST 


NAPOLEON  AS  A  SOCIALIST 


The  opponents  of  Socialism  are  never  tired  of 
arguing  that  Socialism  at  best  is  only  the  dream 
of  impractical  idealists,  that  it  has  never  been 
tried  on  a  large  scale,  at  least,  in  modern  society, 
and  that  wherever  it  has  been  tried  on  a  small 
scale  it  has  either  been  a  lamentable  f ailm*e  or  has 
resulted  in  practical  unrest  or  periodical  revolu- 
tion. Now,  the  history  of  the  French  people 
shows  that  Socialism  has  been  tried  by  the  most 
xealistic,  the  most  practical  ruler  of  modern  times, 
that  it  has  been  a  magnificent  success,  and  that, 
so  far  from  having  proved  a  cause  of  revolution 
;and  instability,  agrarian  Socialism  in  France 
has  proved  a  most  conservative  force,  and  has 
raised  the  most  efficient  bulwark  against  revo- 
lution. 

II 

Academic  historians  keep  us  in  such  complete 
ignorance  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  fundamental 
iacts  of  history  that  most  readers  may  fail  to 
see  that  I  am  referring  to  the  Testamentary  Law 

206 


NAPOLEON   AS   A  SOCIALIST      207 

of  the  Code  Napoleon,  and  they  will  dismiss  with 
a  smile  as  a  Chestertonian  paradox  the  Socialism 
of  a  sovereign  who  created  new  aristocracies  and 
new  dynasties,  and  who  partitioned  the  thrones 
of  Europe  amongst  his  relatives  and  his  soldiers. 
Academic  historians  are  so  much  deceived  by 
watchwords  and  doctrinaire  formulas  that  it 
does  not  occur  to  them  that  the  Testamentary 
Law  of  the  Code  Napoleon  is  indeed  the  most 
daring  Socialistic  experiment  which  was  ever 
attempted,  as  well  as  the  most  successful  and  the 
most  beneficial,  and  that,  therefore.  Napoleon 
is  entitled  to  the  claim  of  being  the  greatest 
practical  Socialist  of  all  ages.  I  do  not  use  the 
word  in  a  vague  sense,  I  use  it  in  its  literal 
technical  meaning.  The  aim  of  Napoleon  has 
been  the  establishment  of  social  equality,  his 
method  the  power  of  the  State,  his  achievement 
the  abolition  of  the  landed  aristocracy,  and  the 
division  of  the  soil  of  France  amongst  six  millions 
of  peasant  proprietors.  Thiers  may  wiite 
twenty  volumes  on  Napoleon,  and  ignore  that 
fundamental  fact.  But  poets  like  Beranger,  and 
novelists  like  Balzac,  have  seen  further  and  gone 
deeper  than  the  bourgeois  chronicler  of  the 
treatises  and  campaigns  of  the  Empire,  and  they 
have  proved  once  more  the  truth  of  the  Aristo- 
telian dictum  that  poetry  is  truer  than  history. 


208       THE  FEENCH  RENASCENCE 

They  have  realized  that  it  is  the  Socialistic 
legislation  of  the  Code  Napoleon  which  has  been 
the  enduring  monument  of  the  First  Empire. 
They  have  revealed  to  us  why  Napoleon  has 
remained  the  idol  of  the  peasantry  and  of  the 
people,  although  he  sent  their  sons  by  hundreds 
of  thousands  to  the  shambles  of  the  battlefield. 
It  is  not  our  present  purpose  to  determine  the 
exact  part  which  Napoleon  took  in  the  elabora- 
tion of  the  Code  Civil.  His  systematic 
adversaries  see  nothing  but  organized  flattery 
in  the  "  Proces  verbaux  "  of  the  Conseil  d'Etat, 
and  they  tell  us  that  he  gave  nothing  but  his 
name  to  the  Code  Civil.  Even  so,  Tolstoy  reveals 
to  us  that  Napoleon  did  not  fight  his  own  battles, 
perhaps  paving  the  way  for  the  future  historian 
who  will  take  up  Archbishop  Whately's  argu- 
ment that  Napoleon  never  existed.  Without 
going  the  length  of  Lanfrey,  temperate  critics 
tell  us  that,  even  admitting  that  Napoleon 
directed  the  legislative  labours  of  the  Conseil 
d'Etat,  the  Code  Civil  has  only  systematized 
existing  legislation,  and  embodied  the  principles 
and  the  customs  of  the  ancient  monarchy.  But 
to  grant  all  this  is  not  to  diminish  the  historic 
part  of  Napoleon,  it  is  only  to  raise  him  on  a 
higher  pedestal.  For,  on  this  theory,  Napoleon 
must  be  considered  not  only  as  the  armed  soldier 


NAPOLEON   AS   A   SOCIALIST      205 

of  democracy,  the  executor  of  the  Revolution,  or, 
to  use  the  quaint  phraseology  of  Lord  Rosebery, 
the  "  scavenger  of  Europe,"  he  is  made  the  heir 
to  the  whole  tradition  of  the  French  people,  and 
his  legislative  achievement  is  the  ultimate  out- 
come of  French  civilization. 


Ill 

Whatever  credit  the  monarchy  and  the  revo- 
lution may  claim  in  the  Code  Civil,  one  thing 
is  certain :  where  the  revolution  has  failed, 
Napoleon  did  succeed.  The  revolutionists,  in- 
spired with  the  Socialistic  ideal,  deemed,  and 
rightly  deemed,  that  the  hereditary  aristocracy 
was  the  negation  of  social  justice,  the  mainstay 
of  oppression,  the  nursery  of  pauperism  and 
corruption.  They  argued,  and  they  rightly 
argued,  that  every  citizen  ought  to  have  a  stake 
in  the  land.  Imbued  with  this  conviction,  the 
revolutionary  statesmen  set  themselves  to  abolish 
the  landed  aristocracy  with  the  fervour  and 
logic  of  their  race.  The  early  revolutionists 
nourished  the  fond  hope  that  the  aristocracy 
might  be  abolished  by  the  voluntary  sacrifice 
and  renunciation  of  the  privileged  classes,  but 
they  soon  discovered  that  enthusiasm  and  self- 


210       THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

sacrifice  are  fitful  and  short-lived,  and  that  the 
Night  of  the  Fourth  of  August,  1789,  did  not 
prove  to  be  the  night  of  Pentecost.  After  the 
failure  of  their  hopes,  the  revolutionists  soon 
resorted  to  the  more  drastic  method  of  confisca- 
tion, and  they  finally  were  led  to  assume  that 
the  quickest  way  of  suppressing  the  aristocracy 
was  to  suppress  the  aristocrats,  and  to  send 
them  to  the  guillotine.  But  the  event  proved 
that  confiscation  and  wholesale  murder  were 
alike  ineffective  ;  for  confiscation  only  trans- 
ferred the  land  from  the  legitimate  owners  to 
the  spoliators,  and  the  hecatombs  of  the  guillotine 
only  transformed  the  oppressors  of  yesterday 
into  heroes  and  martyrs,  and  only  hastened  on 
the  Counter-revolution. 

Whether  Napoleon  was  the  author  of  the  Code 
Civil  or  whether  he  was  not,  he  clearly  read  the 
signs  of  the  times.  He  saw  that  a  constructive 
revolution  could  only  be  achieved  by  law,  and 
only  by  a  law  which  would  be  in  harmony  with 
the  elemental  instincts  of  men,  a  law  which 
would  reconcile  the  interests  of  the  State  and 
those  of  the  individual,  a  law  which  would  make 
no  exception  of  persons,  and  would  not  be  aimed 
against  individuals,  but  which  would  be  universal 
in  its  operation. 


NAPOLEON   AS   A   SOCIALIST     211 

IV 

What  strikes  us  most  in  the  Testamentary 
Legislation  of  Napoleon  is  the  apparent  dis- 
proportion between  the  simplicity  of  the  means 
and  the  magnitude  of  the  results.  The  memor- 
able Article  913  of  the  Civil  Code,  which 
practically  compels  parents  to  leave  equal  por- 
tions to  all  their  children,  and  which  absolutely 
deprives  them  of  the  right  of  disinheriting  any, 
at  first  sight,  seems  nothing  but  a  check  against 
the  injustice,  vanity,  and  caprice  of  t3n:annical 
parents  ;  nothing  but  a  moderate  compromise 
between  the  rights  of  the  older  and  those  of  the 
younger  generations  ;  nothing  but  the  extension 
of  an  ancient  principle,  embodied  in  legislation 
at  all  ages  and  stages  of  human  society. 

But  if  we  read  the  Article  913  in  conjunction 
with  the  previous,  exacting  the  compulsory  sale 
or  "  lidtation ''  of  the  family  property  in  case 
of  disagreement,  the  Testamentary  Law  becomes  a 
formidable  weapon  which  must  inevitably  break 
up  all  large  landed  estates,  and  make  the  re- 
establishment  of  a  landed  aristocracy  impossible 
for  all  times. 

For  the  Testamentary  Law  is  automatic  like  a 
machine,  relentless  like  the  guillotine.  And  the 
greater  an  estate,  the  more  surely  it  will  be 
broken  up.     The  wealthy  French  merchant  may 


212     THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

buy  a  large  property  and  enjoy  it  during  hm 
lifetime,  but  on  his  death,  in  ninety-five  cases 
out  of  a  hundred,  the  property  must  needs  be 
divided  amongst  his  children.  If  the  owner  did 
leave  it  by  will  to  his  eldest  son,  two  things 
might  happen.  Either  the  father  would  have 
to  compensate  the  other  children  and  leave 
them  equal  shares  in  money,  in  which  case  the 
eldest  son,  being  burdened  with  an  extensive 
estate  with  very  little  capital  to  work  it,  would 
probably  not  be  able  to  make  both  ends  meet ; 
or  the  father  would  favour  the  eldest  son  to 
enable  him  to  work  the  estate,  and  he  would 
leave  the  other  children  only  what  the  French 
law  compels  him  to  leave  them,  in  which  case 
the  younger  children  would  disagree  and  demand 
a  compulsory  sale  or  ''  licitation."  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  consequences  of  any  inequality  in  the 
settlement  are  so  serious  that  sentiment  and 
tradition  are  against  it,  and,  in  ninety-nine 
cases  out  of  a  hundred,  owners  of  property  do  not 
even  take  advantage  of  the  not  inconsiderable 
liberty  which  the  Code  Napoleon  leaves  them. 


It  has  been  often  contended  by  opponents  of 
the  law,  and  by  none  more  emphatically  than  by 
Leplay  in  "  La  Reforme  Sociale,'"  and  by  Balzac 


NAPOLEON   AS   A   SOCIALIST       213 

in  "  The  Country  Doctor,"  that  the  Civil  Code 
not  only  destroys  large  estates,  but  also  breaks 
up  small  estates  beyond  the  point  where  they 
can  no  more  support  the  owner.  Such  a  con- 
tention stands  self-refuted,  even  if  it  were  not 
contradicted  by  the  facts.  That  the  Testa- 
mentary Law  breaks  up  land  to  the  extreme 
limit,  and  divides  it  amongst  the  largest  possible 
number  of  proprietors,  is  certainly  true  ;  and 
that  extreme  division  is  claimed  by  its  sup- 
porters as  the  most  desirable  efiect  of  the  law. 
But  beyond  the  point  where  the  division  would 
cease  to  be  advantageous  to  the  owner  and 
become  ruinous  to  agriculture,  the  breaking-up 
process  cannot  possibly  go.  Although  there 
may  occur  individual  cases  where  the  minute 
division  renders  cultivation  difficult  or  unpro- 
fitable, those  cases  must  necessarily  be  few,  and 
must  inevitably  be  adjusted.  Either  the  owner 
will  ply  another  trade  and  work  his  little  plot 
of  land  only  to  eke  out  his  income,  or,  if  his  piece 
of  land  cannot  be  worked  to  advantage,  he  will 
sell  it  to  his  neighbour.  Unless  we  assume  that 
French  peasants  are  far  more  stupid  than  they 
are  habitually  assumed  to  be,  and  they  are 
generally  credited  with  considerable  shrewdness 
and  practical  sense,  it  is  absurd  to  admit  that 
in  any  settlement  they  will  not  make  the  best 
possible  bargain  for  themselves. 


214       THE   FRENCH   EENASCENCE 

VI 

It  ought  to  be  added  that,  whilst  the  law 
breaks  up  large  estates  and  multiplies  small 
holdings,  it  does  not  destroy  moderate  estates. 
Country  life  under  the  Testamentary  Law,  and 
under  any  law,  continues  to  attract  by  tens  of 
thousands  the  city-bred  professional  or  com- 
mercial man.  No  doubt  they  will  not  be  able, 
like  the  retired  or  successful  British  merchant, 
to  buy  a  large  estate  and  raise  their  social  status 
by  claiming  admittance  into  the  ranks  of  the 
gentry.  But  they  will  generally  be  content  to 
buy  a  small  property,  and  will  do  so  all  the  more 
willingly  because  its  moderate  size  will  probably 
enable  one  of  their  children  to  retain  it.  There 
is  no  land  on  the  continent  of  Europe  which  is 
more  thickly  studded  than  France  with  little 
country  houses  and  delightful  summer  retreats. 

The  Testamentary  Law,  then,  has  attained 
the  object  which  the  legislator  had  in  view.  The 
country  which  boasted  of  the  most  ancient  and 
the  most  brilliant  aristocracy  of  Europe,  the 
country  which  created  the  ideal  of  chivalry,  has 
become  the  classical  land  of  small  holdings.  The 
stately  abodes  of  royalty  and  the  magnificent 
abbeys  of  the  Church  are  either  picturesque 
solitudes  like  Chambord  or  have  been  turned 


NAPOLEON  AS  A  SOCIALIST       215 

into  gambling  dens  like  Vizille,  or  have  been 
bought  by  aliens  like  Saint  Wandrille  and 
Chenonceaux,  or  are  occupied  by  life  tenants  like 
the  majority  of  the  historic  chateaux  of  ancient 
Gaul.  It  may  be  said  that  all  over  France  real 
property  has  been  largely  transferred  from  the 
classes  to  the  masses. 


VII 

But  although  the  Testamentary  Law  has 
completely  attained  its  object,  and  has  led,  in 
one  or  two  generations,  without  violence  and 
confiscation,  to  the  suppression  of  the  landed 
aristocracy,  the  much  more  important  question 
remains  to  be  solved.  Was  the  object  a  desir- 
able one  ?  Have  the  results  been  beneficial,, 
or  have  they  been  detrimental  to  the  welfare 
of  the  French  people  ? 

Without  entering  into  theoretical  considera- 
tions as  to  the  desirability  of  the  object  in  itself, 
most  economists  are  satisfied  with  examining 
the  immediate  effects  of  the  revolution.  And 
the  main  result,  the  creation  of  a  whole  nation 
of  landowners,  seems  to  them  so  marvellous, 
so  far-reaching,  that  in  the  judgment  of  the 
majority  of   economists  the  testamentary  pro- 


216     THE   FRENCH    RENASCENCE 

vision  of  the  Code  Napoleon  must  appear 
as  the  most  beneficent  law  in  the  history  of 
mankind.  John  Stuart  Mill  has  changed  his 
opinions  on  many  fundamental  problems  of 
economics,  politics,  and  ethics,  but  he  has  never 
changed  or  wavered  in  his  admiration  of  peasant 
proprietorship.  And  although,  strange  to  say, 
he  has  failed  to  trace  peasant  proprietorship 
to  its  direct  cause,  and  has  even,  in  flagrant 
contradiction  with  himself,  expressed  disap- 
proval of  the  Napoleonic  laws  of  succession, 
the  chapters  on  the  subject  in  his  '*  Political 
Economy ''  remain  as  the  most  eloquent  plea 
in  favour  of  the  social  conditions  of  France 
and  Belgium. 

But  it  is  only  when  we  examine  the  indirect 
results  of  the  system  that  we  can  realize  all  that 
France  owes  to  the  Testamentary  Law,  and, 
even  though  the  benefits  conferred  have  been 
attended  with  some  disadvantages,  those  are 
only  the  price  and  compensation  which  man- 
kind has  to  pay  for  every  permanent  blessing 
conferred  upon  it. 

(1)  The  creation  of  peasant  proprietorship  has 
enormously  increased  national  prosperity  and 
the  productive  capacity  of  the  French  people, 
^nd  has  proved  once  more  the  truth  of  Arthur 
Young's  aphorism  :    "  The  magic  of  property 


NAPOLEON  AS  A  SOCIALIST      217 

transforms  a  desert  into  a  garden/'  France 
has,  indeed,  become  the  garden  and  the  market 
garden  of  Europe.  The  vitality  of  French 
agriculture  has  withstood  every  crisis.  French 
viticulture  has  emerged  triumphant  from  the 
dire  invasion  of  the  phylloxera,  which  has  cost 
the  French  nation  more  than  the  German 
invasion  of  1870.  It  may  be  that,  under  the 
the  new  conditions  of  scientific  agriculture, 
large  estates  are  more  productive  than  the 
small  ones  ;  but,  after  all,  political  economy  is 
human  economy,  and  it  is  the  breeding  of  men, 
and  not  the  breeding  of  cattle,  that  matters 
to  a  nation. 

(2)  The  Testamentary  Law  has  encouraged 
thrift  and  all  the  prudential  virtues.  To  him 
that  hath  shall  be  given.  The  man  who  can 
buy  independence,  security,  and  dignity  by 
converting  his  savings  into  a  plot  of  land  will 
be  induced  to  save  more.  Hence  that  passion 
for  saving  which  is  mainly  the  result  of  the 
hunger  for  land.  Hence  the  hidden  treasures, 
the  woollen  stockings  full  of  louis  and  napoleons, 
which  have  made  France  one  of  the  great  money 
markets  of  the  world. 

(3)  By  increasing  the  national  prosperity, 
by  encouraging  thrift,  the  Testamentary  Law 
has  raised  the  standard  of  living.     It  may  be 


218       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

that  the  French  peasant  will  submit  to  hardships 
which  few  farm-labourers  would  submit  to  in 
England,  but,  in  the  long  run,  the  peasant  is 
rewarded  for  his  toil.  No  one  who  knows  the 
French  provinces  will  doubt  that,  on  the  whole, 
the  standard  of  comfort  amongst  the  lower 
classes  is  higher  in  France  than  in  Great  Britain, 
and  that  where  in  individual  cases  it  is  lower, 
it  is  so,  not  as  the  result  of  poverty,  but  of  that 
sordid  miserliness  which  is  the  national  vice 
of  the  French  people.  The  comparison  ought 
not  to  be  made  to  apply  to  individual  cases  or 
to  particular  districts.  It  ought  to  be  made 
between  the  five  or  six  millions  of  French 
peasant  proprietors  and  the  three  or  four  millions 
of  British  unskilled  labourers  and  unemployed 
whom  the  agricultural  or  commercial  or  in- 
dustrial crises  have  driven  into  the  slums  of 
our  large  cities. 

(4)  And  it  is  because  the  Testamentary  Law 
has  given  to  millions  of  French  people  a  stake 
and  an  interest  in  the  country  that  it  has  made 
for  order  and  stability.  That  great  constructive 
measure  of  reform  of  the  French  Revolution 
has  been  in  efiect  a  great  conservative  measure. 
Paris  may  be  the  revolutionary  centre  of 
Europe,  because  it  is  the  intellectual  centre,  and 
because   the   French    intellect,    which   is   ever 


NAPOLEON  AS  A  SOCIALIST       219 

creating  new  ideas  and  new  ideals,  must  needs 
be  revolutionary.  Paris  may  be  the  ever- 
smouldering  volcano,  it  may  be  ever  experiment- 
ing in  politics.  But  the  provinces  of  France 
are  probably  the  most  conservative  part  of 
civilized  Europe.  The  French  peasant  is  con- 
servative because  he  has  something  to  conserve, 
as  the  Russian  peasant  is  a  rebel  because  he  has 
everything  to  gain  by  insurrection. 

(5)  Peasant  proprietorship  has  enabled  France 
to  escape  from  the  curse  of  pauperism.  And, 
therefore,  without  the  inexhaustible  source  of 
wealth  possessed  by  England,  France  is,  never- 
theless, the  richer  country,  because  wealth  is 
more  equally  divided,  and  because  the  divison 
ensures  the  happiness  and  comfort  of  the  greater 
number.  There  is  no  corresponding  term  in 
the  French  language  to  the  hideous  word 
slum.  The  word  does  not  exist  because  the 
thing  is  non-existent.  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
individual  poverty  in  France,  because  wherever 
there  are  large  centres  of  population  there  must 
be  poverty,  but  there  is  no  systematic  poverty 
such  as  exists  in  England,  and  such  as  Rowntree 
has  revealed  to  us  in  comparatively  small  cities 
like  York.  France  has  been  saved  through  the 
Testamentary  Law  from  the  appalling  evil  which 
is  the  source  of  most  other  social  evils,  and 


220      THE   FEENCH   RENASCENCE 

which  must  bring  about  in  a  few  generations 
the  moral  degradation  and  the  physiological 
decline  of  the  British  race. 


VIII 

It  remains  for  us  to  examine  whether  those 
incalculable  advantages  produced  by  French 
peasant  proprietorship,  which  we  have  just 
analysed,  are  not  counterbalanced  and  out- 
weighed by  even  greater  disadvantages. 

(1)  It  has  been  objected  in  the  first  place 
that  a  nation  may  be  threatened  with  an  even 
greater  evil  than  the  degradation  of  the  race, 
namely,  its  extinction,  as  the  result  of  the 
systematic  restriction  of  the  population.  And 
it  has  been  contended  that  in  France  the 
Testamentary  Law  is  directly  or  indirectly 
responsible  for  that  evil. 

Now  it  is  quite  true  that  peasant  proprietor- 
ship tends  to  the  diminution  of  the  population. 
But  that  diminution  is  in  reality  caused  by  a 
law  which  is  the  tragic  paradox  of  human  history, 
and  which  in  all  times  has  been  a  menace  to 
nations  in  an  advanced  state  of  civilization.  It 
is  a  universal  law  and  a  natural  law,  which 
has  only  been  checked  by  the  interposition  of 


NAPOLEON   AS   A   SOCIALIST     221 

Belgium,  in  Catholic  countries  like  Canada 
and  Ireland,  in  Belgium  and  Germany.  In 
all  times  and  in  all  countries  the  increase  of 
population  seems  to  have  been  in  inverse  ratio 
to  quality.  The  more  means  parents  have  to 
support  their  children,  the  fewer  children  they 
have.  It  is  the  proletariat  that  always  have 
been  most  prolific  ;  it  is  the  miserable  and 
unhappy  that  multiply  at  the  expense  of  the 
strong. 

(2)  There  is  another  accusation  levelled  at 
the  Testamentary  Law  which  is  just  as  true  and 
just  as  false,  according  to  one's  preconceptions, 
namely,  that  the  Testamentary  Law  is  responsible 
for  the  failure  of  French  colonization.  France 
has  always  produced  pioneers  and  soldiers,  but 
France  has  not  produced  colonists,  because 
France  does  not  produce  emigrants.  But  the 
Frenchman  fails  to  emigrate  not  because  of 
peasant  proprietorship,  but  because  his  native 
country,  partly,  no  doubt,  owing  to  peasant 
proprietorship,  has  more  attractions  than  any 
foreign  country.  The  Frenchman  does  not 
emigrate  because  French  life  is  too  easy,  and 
because  France  is  the  most  beautiful  country 
God  ever  created,  after  His  own  Kingdom  of 
Heaven.  And  it  is  as  fair  to  blame  the  Tes- 
tamentary Law   for  the   failure  of   emigration 


222      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

as  it  would  be  to  blame  the  radiance  of  the  sun, 
or  the  abundance  of  the  soil,  or  the  smiling 
vineyards,  or  the  temperament  of  the  people. 
(3)  There  is  one  other  accusation  which  seems 
to  contain  more  truth.  The  Testamentary  Law, 
the  small  holdings  have  discouraged  industry  and 
checked  commercial  enterprise.  France  could 
not,  in  any  case,  not  being  a  great  coal  and 
iron  producing  country,  have  become  a  great 
commercial  power,  but  the  Testamentary  Law 
still  further  discourages  industry  and  hampers 
commercial  development.  For,  under  modern 
conditions,  commerce  and  industry  on  a  large 
scale  cannot  be  carried  on  without  considerable 
enterprise  and  risk.  The  French  peasant  will 
risk  his  life,  but  he  will  not  risk  his  money, 
because  in  risking  his  money  he  risks  more  than 
his  life — he  risks  the  future  of  his  children,  his 
leisure  and  independence,  his  place  in  society. 


IX 

The  above  analysis,  brief  as  it  is,  may  suffice 
to  put  the  problem  of  the  Testamentary  Law  in 
its  main  aspects,  and  to  provide  the  reader  with 
the  necessary  elements  for  forming  an  inde- 
pendent judgment.  In  a  question  of  such 
formidable  complexity,  raising  so  many  vital 


NAPOLEON   AS   A   SOCIALIST     223 

issues,  where  the  evil  is  so  often  mixed  up  with 
the  good,  it  is  impossible  to  expect  unanimity 
of  opinion.     I  shall  leave  it  to  the  reader  to  draw 
his  own  practical  conclusions  from  the  previous 
pages.     For  those  conclusions  must  force  them- 
selves on  his  consideration.     Assuming  that  the 
Testamentary  Law  has  been  a  blessing  to  France, 
the  question  immediately  arises.  Why  should  it 
not   be   applicable  to   England  ?     It  has  been 
applied  to  Belgium,   to  Holland,   and  to  many 
Continental    countries.     Bulgaria,    which    only 
thirty  years  ago   was  living  under   the  aristo- 
cratic   regime    of    the    Turkish    landlord,    has 
become,  through  the  operation  of  the  Napoleonic 
Law,   the  peasant^s  paradise,  and   this   benefi- 
cent revolution  has  taken  place  in  less  than  a 
generation.     Bulgaria    has    become,    in    conse- 
quence, the  paramount  power  in  the  Balkans, 
whereas  Roumania,  whose  land  is  appropriated 
by  a  needy  aristocracy  and  mortgaged  to  the 
Jewish  moneylender,  has  become  a  feudatory 
State  of  Austria  and  Germany. 

The  great  problem  which  Napoleon  set  himself 
to  solve  still  remains  unsolved  in  this  country. 
Most  Radicals  are  agreed  that  landed  estates 
^re  an  anachronism  and  an  evil,  and  that  their 
suppression  is  desirable.  They  may  be  right 
or  they  may  be  wrong,  but  if  they  are  right  they 


224     THE    FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

ought  to  employ  the  most  efficient  and  the 
simplest  means  to  bring  about  the  desirable 
consummation,  and  they  ought  to  profit  by  the 
experience  of  other  nations.  Now,  the  experience 
of  France,  as  well  as  of  smaller  countries  like 
Belgium  and  Bulgaria,  has  shown  that  all  other 
means  to  suppress  large  landed  estates  are 
makeshifts,  or  involve  such  a  measure  of  injus- 
tice and  violence  as  renders  them  impracticable. 
The  ultimate  question  is,  therefore,  whether 
the  reform  of  the  Testamentary  Law  is  not  even 
for  England  the  only  simple,  direct,  logical, 
efficient,  practicable  and  conservative  method 
to  bring  about  a  better  social  order  based  on 
equality,  and  that  Mr.  Lloyd  George  can  only 
succeed  by  following  in  the  footsteps  of  the 
first  Napoleon. 


BALZAC 


BALZAC 

I 
When  a  writer  dies  at  fifty-one,  when  into  this 
brief  span  of  life  he  has  crowded  one  hundred- 
odd  volumes,  of  which  at  least  thirty  are 
masterpieces,  when  from  early  youth  he  has 
been  spending  fourteen  hours  a  day  bent  over 
his  copy  and  taking  stimulants  in  order  to  be 
able  to  produce  more  copy,  there  cannot  have 
been  much  time  left  for  exciting  external  ad- 
venture. And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  although 
there  is  plenty  of  adventure  in  Balzac's  novels, 
there  is  little  enough  in  the  life  of  the  novelist. 
It  is  true,  on  the  other  hand,  that,  whatever 
incident  there  is,  is  of  supreme  importance  for 
the  interest  of  his  work.  For  there  never  was 
a  great  artist,  unless  it  be  Tolstoy,  whose  work 
was  so  entirely  autobiographical.  There  never 
was  a  writer  whose  writings  bore  so  unmistakably 
the  imprint  of  his  Titanic  personality. 

II 

Balzac  entered  Paris  like  a  conqueror,  as  a 
young  provincial  from  Touraine,  the  garden  of 
France,    the    country    of    Rabelais.    Similarly, 


BALZAC  227 

most  of  Balzac's  favourite  heroes,  like  Rastignac 
and  Rubempre,  came  from  the  province  to  seek 
fame  and  fortune  in  modern  Babylon. 

Balzac  was  a  middle-class  parvenu,  a  typical 
"  bourgeois  gentilhomme,""  who  wanted  to  make 
his  way  into  the  nobility,  who  altered  the 
physiognomy  of  his  baptismal  name,  and,  instead 
of  plain  Monsieur  Balza,  called  himself  Monsieur 
Honor e  de  Balzac.  Similarly,  many  of  his 
heroes  are  endowed  with  the  same  high  social 
ambitions  and  aspirations. 

Balzac,  like  another  famous  parvenu  and 
novelist,  d'Israeli,  had  many  affectations  and 
mannerisms,  and  those  mannerisms  are  un- 
doubtedly reflected  in  his  laborious  style  and  in 
the  often  forced  quality  of  his  wit,  and  one  in- 
voluntarily thinks  of  the  author  penning  his 
love  intrigues  and  his  unedifying  droll  stories 
clad  in  a  Dominican's  white  robes. 

Balzac  had  very  difficult  beginnings^  and  he 
had  countless  novels  killed  under  him.  He 
became  a  great  novelist  not  by  the  grace  divine 
of  his  native  genius,  but  by  virtue  of  his  tre- 
mendous will  power.  He  was  like  a  great 
orator  born  with  an  impediment  in  his  speech, 
or  like  a  great  composer  stricken  with  deafness. 
And  although  those  difficulties  were  heroically 
encountered,  and  although  his  overcoming  them 


228       THE  FKENCH  KENASCENCE 

must  be  an  inspiration  to  beginners  for  all  times 
to  come,  the  initial  impediment  in  his  speech 
remains  only  too  apparent,  and  even  his  best 
work  contains  many  parts  unworthy  of  his 
genius. 

Balzac  was  constantly  involved  in  money 
difficulties  and  legal  entanglements.  All  through 
life  he  dreamt  of  making  millions,  of  exploiting 
imaginary  gold  mines,  and  almost  until  the  end 
he  was  harassed  by  creditors.  And  the  money 
difficulties  and  legal  entanglements  creep  up  in 
every  novel.  High  and  low  finance  provide  the 
atmosphere  of  many  a  story.  Half  his  charac- 
ters are  either  in  debt  or  in  the  clutches  of 
usurers,  or  obsessed  by  their  expectations. 

Balzac  was  ever  dreaming  of  marrjdng  an 
heiress  from  the  nobility,  and  he  eventually 
realized  his  dreams.  After  waiting  for  twenty 
years,  he  secured  his  prize,  and  after  a  few  months 
he  died.  Even  so,  Balzac's  heroes,  Rastignac, 
and  Rubempre,  and  young  Grandet,  are  pur- 
suing the  same  quest,  and  **  un  beau  mariage  '* 
— a  fine  marriage — is  one  of  the  mainsprings  of 
the  Balzacian  novel. 

Ill 

English  writers,  even  the  greatest,  live  in 
constant  terror  of  their  special  public ;    they 


BALZAC  229 

are  in  awe  of  the  circulating  library.  And, 
like  their  public,  they  are  afraid  of  the  truth ; 
they  are  afraid  that  it  may  be  found  too  de- 
pressing ;  they  are  afraid  that  it  may  be  found 
sordid  ;  most  of  all,  they  are  afraid  that  it 
may  be  found  immoral.  Balzac  has  no  such 
ignoble  terror,  for  he  does  not  write  for  the 
circulating  library.  Indeed,  although  weighed 
down  by  a  crushing  burden  of  debt,  he  never 
thinks  of  his  reader.  He  has  a  Frenchman's 
instinct  for  sincerity  and  intellectual  integrity. 
His  vision  of  truth  may  not  be  suitable  for  a 
schoolgirl,  but  he  does  not  write  for  the  school- 
girl. His  stories  may  not  be  palatable  to  the 
weakly  sentimentalist,  but  he  does  not  write 
for  the  sentimentalist.  He  only  writes  for 
those  who  have  an  insatiable  curiosity  for  and 
sympathy  with  suffering  and  struggling  humanity. 
He  only  writes  for  those  who  want  to  be 
spectators  and  partakers  of  the  whole  "  human 
comedy,''  who  want  to  be  lifted  above  their 
narrow  little  world,  to  be  plunged  into  the 
whirlpool  and  "  maelstrom  "  of  human  endeavour 
and  human  passion. 

IV 

For  Balzac  is  pre-eminently,  like  Shakespeare, 
the  poet  of  passion,  of  elemental  and  primordial 


230      THE   FRENCH   EENASCENCE 

passion.  And,  like  Shakespeare,  he  is  the 
anatomist  of  the  soul.  And,  like  every  drama 
of  the  English  poet,  so  every  novel  of  the  French- 
man is  the  story  of  one  absorbing  desire,  over- 
mastering, uncontrolled,  and  spreading  havoc 
and  devastation  because  it  is  uncontrolled. 
"  Cousin  Pons ""  is  the  tragedy  of  the  artist  and 
idealist  in  conflict  with  the  realities  of  a  sordid 
world.  *'  Cousine  Bette "  is  the  tragedy  of 
lust.  The  "  Quest  of  the  Absolute ''  is  the 
tragedy  of  scientific  curiosity.  ''  Eugenie 
Grandet ''  is  the  tragedy  of  avarice.  ''  The 
Greatness  and  Decline  of  Cesar  Birotteau " 
is  the  tragedy  of  bourgeois  vanity.  "  A 
Bachelor's  Establishment ""  is  the  tragedy  of 
the  soldier  who  is  unfitted  by  his  military  career 
for  the  duties  of  civic  life.  "  Old  Goriot ''  is 
the  tragedy  of  paternal  love,  and  last,  not  least, 
the  **  Wild  Ass's  Skin  "  sums  up  in  one  striking 
philosophical  symbol  the  whole  tragedy  of 
human  destiny. 


Most  great  novelists  have  their  limitations, 
and  only  give  us  some  aspects  of  the  moral  and 
social  world.  They  are  London  cockneys  like 
Dickens,    or   Belgravians   and   Mayfairers   like 


\  7     /'     'JIT 


w.H.c-<s^>-'v»vr 


,/ 


H0N0H6  DE  BALZAC,  NATUS  1799,  OBHT  1860 


232      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

Thackeray.    Or  they  only  give  us  the  Cathedral 
town  like   TroUope,   or  the   Five   Towns  like 
Arnold  Bennett,  or  the  annals  of  the  country 
house    like   Jane    Austen,   or    the   Annals    of 
the  Parish.      Balzac  has  no  such    limitations. 
He   is    neither   metropolitan,    nor   urban,    nor 
suburban,   nor  rural.    He   is  never  parochial. 
He  is  ever  universal.    He  may  have  his  pre- 
dilections ;   he  may  love  to  describe  Napoleonic 
veterans    ("  Colonel    Chabert,''    "  Medecin    de 
Campagne '')    because   he   is   a   worshipper   of 
Napoleon,   and  because  he   himself  claims  to 
be  the  Napoleon  of  literature.    He  may  love 
to  describe  priests  because,  if  not  in  the  practice 
of  his  life,  at  least  in  theory,  he  is  a  good  Catholic, 
and  because,  like  every  good  Frenchman,  he 
has   a  horror  of  sect  and   schism.    But  he  is 
restricted  to  no  class.    If  his  types  of  the  soldier 
and   priest   are   admirable,    his   peasants   and 
bourgeois  are  equally  strong,  or  his  artists  and 
politicians,  or  his  costermongers  or  prostitutes, 
or    his    lawyers    and    money-lenders.    Myriads 
of  characters  move  in  the  vast  world  of  the 
"  Human    Comedy,"'    whether    the    part    they 
play   be   insignificant   or   important ;    whether 
they  belong  to  high  life  or  low  life,  they  are 
described  with  the  same  zest,  with  the  same 
loving  minuteness  of  the  craftsman. 


BALZAC  233 

VI 

There  is  one  striking  peculiarity  and  contra- 
diction in  Balzac's  art :  whilst  his  horizon  is 
infinite,  his  canvas  is  generally  small.  He 
almost  invariably  prefers  the  Dutch  manner  to 
the  largeness  and  amplitude  of  the  Italian 
masters.  Condensation  of  -matter  is  one  of  his 
most  constant  characteristics.  Few  of  his 
novels  have  more  than  400  pages,  and  again  and 
again  the  tragedy  is  condensed  into  thirty  or 
forty  pages.  And  the  quantity  is  often  in 
inverse  ratio  to  the  quality.  Even  Balzac  has 
done  nothing  greater  than  the  *'  Maranas  *'  or 
"  Colonel  Chabert,"  or  the  "  Commissioner  in 
Lunacy  " — unless  it  be  the  **  Cure  de  Tours/' 
I  remember  Maeterlinck  telling  me  one  day  that 
he  considers  that  little  masterpiece  the  supreme 
achievement  of  the  novelist,  and  I  feel  very  much 
disposed  to  agree  with  him.  In  the  good  old 
days  of  the  31s.  6d.  novel,  English  writers,  for 
commercial  reasons,  were  compelled  to  thin  out 
and  to  spin  out  their  story,  and  to  solve  the 
difficult  problem  of  expanding  one  volume  into 
three.  Balzac,  on  the  contrary,  is  generally 
more  inclined  to  crowd  three  novels  into  one. 
**  Old  Goriot  "  is  an  excellent  illustration  of  the 
tendency.  In  this  one  masterpiece  there  is 
material  for  four  novels.    First  there  is  a  detec- 


234      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

tive  story  in  the  adventures  of  Vautrin — ^the 
original  of  "  Jean  Valjean/'  Secondly,  there 
is  a  romantic  autobiography  in  the  rise  of  M.  de 
Rastignac.  Thirdly,  there  is  a  society  novel 
and  a  "  Vanity  Fair  "  in  the  intrigues  of  Madame 
de  Beauseant  and  the  Baronne  de  Nucongen, 
and,  finally,  there  is  the  King  Lear  tragedy  of 
the  old  Goriot  deserted  by  the  daughter  to 
whom  he  has  sacrificed  everything. 


VII 

I  admit  that  this  instinct  for  condensation 
often  leads  to  overcrowding,  and,  in  the  words 
of  Henry  James,  makes  Balzac^s  novels  "  very 
difficult  reading/'  A  study  of  the  French  master 
requires  strenuous  discipline,  and  is  in  itself  an 
education.  Even  as  the  reader  of  the  silly  and 
flimsy  circulating  library  novel  has  his  taste 
spoiled  for  the  great  Frenchman,  so  conversely 
the  habitual  reading  of  Balzac  spoils  one  for  the 
circulating  library. 

But  in  many  of  his  novels  Balzac  has  avoided 
the  danger  of  overcrowding  the  canvas,  and, 
instead  of  following  the  diverse  fortunes  of 
several  characters,  concentrates  on  one  single 
subject.  This  applies,  of  course,  to  all  his 
short  stories,  but  even  some  of  his  greater  novels 


BALZAC  235 

are  nothing  but  the  isolated  study  of  a  single 
French  family  represented  by  three  or  four 
characters.  In  this  connection  no  critic  seems 
to  have  noticed  that  "  Eugenie  Grandet/'  the 
"  Quest  of  the  Absolute/'  the  "  Greatness  and 
Decline  of  Cesar  Birotteau/'  are  all  cast  in  the 
same  mould,  and  that  they  are  all  equally 
classical  in  their  severe  restraint,  in  their  strict 
observance  of  the  unities.  Those  three  domestic 
dramas  in  their  structure  and  composition 
present  striking  analogies  with  the  domestic 
comedies  of  Moli^re.  Even  as  in  "  L'Avare," 
in  "  Les  Femmes  Savants,"  in  "  Le  Malade 
Imaginaire,"  we  are  presented  with  the  comic 
picture  of  the  typical  French  home,  so  we  are 
given  here  a  tragic  picture.  And  in  each 
comedy  and  in  each  novel  the  analogy  extends 
even  to  the  presence  of  the  inevitable  and  irre- 
pressible domestic  servant. 


VIII 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  the  case  of  the 
three  masterpieces  just  mentioned,  it  is  the 
woman  who  is  the  nobler  character.  Ruskin 
tells  us  in  his  "  Sesame  and  Lilies "  that  in 
Shakespeare's  tragedies  it  is  almost  invariably 
the  woman  who  has  to  suffer  for  or  to  atone  for 


236      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

the  guilt  or  the  selfishness  or  the  stupidity  of  the 
man.  What  Ruskin  says  of  Shakespeare  may 
be  as  fittingly  applied  to  Balzac.  And  this  is 
one  further  point  of  resemblance  between  the 
two  great  poets.  An  implacable  realist,  Balzac 
is  ever  prone  to  idealize  womanhood. 

And  this  brings  us  to  one  of  the  most  disputed 
controversies  in  connection  with  the  "Human 
Comedy.""  Balzac  has  again  and  again  been 
accused  of  pandering  to  the  lower  instincts,  and 
of  taking  a  debased  view  of  human  nature.  It 
is  the  exact  reverse  which  is  the  truth.  The 
rufiians  and  scoundrels  no  doubt  abound.  But 
no  other  poet  has  created  more  admirable  and 
more  diverse  types  of  human  virtue  and  human 
heroism.  No  other  writer  has  higher  ideals, 
although  he  seldom  obtrudes  those  ideals,  al- 
though he  seldom  becomes  didactic,  except  in  the 
"  Country  Doctor "  or  the  "  Village  Priest." 
Those  who  accuse  Balzac  of  immorality  or  of 
pessimism  or  of  cynicism  have  read  him  to  very 
little  purpose.  He  is  too  magnanimous  not  to 
believe  in  human  nature.  He  is  too  full  of 
exuberant  vitality  to  be  a  pessimist,  and  not  to 
beheve  in  life  and  in  the  joy  of  life.  And  he  is 
too  much  of  the  poet  and  of  the  artist  not  to 
believe  in  beauty,  not  to  feel  the  artist's  instinct 
of  transfiguring  and  idealizing  reality.    It  is  for 


BALZAC  237 

that  very  reason  that  Balzac  will  always  appeal 
to  those  readers  who,  in  a  literary  masterpiece 
above  all,  seek  a  vision  of  beauty  and  a  source 
of  energy  and  an  inspiration  for  a  fuller  and 
nobler  life. 


GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 


GUSTAVE   FLAUBEET 


There  are  some  writers  whose  work  is  greater 
than  themselves.    There  are  others  whose  per- 
sonality is  greater  than  their  work.    Flaubert 
belongs  to  the  latter  category.    A  Norman  by 
birth,  and  a  citizen  of  Kouen,  like  Corneille, 
Flaubert,  by  his  massive  frame,  by  his  truculent 
and    aggressive    manner,    reminds    one    of    his 
Norseman    ancestors.     Of    middle-class    origin, 
and  being  left  a  competence  by  his  father,  for 
thirty-five  years  he  lived  in  the  country,  and  this 
reviler  of  the  bourgeoisie  was  almost  a  bourgeois 
in  the  method  and  regularity  of  his  daily  exis- 
tence.    The   even  tenor   of   his  life  was   only 
varied  by  periodical  visits  to  Paris,   and  by 
occasional  journeys  to  the  South  and  to  the  East, 
journeys  always  undertaken  with  a  view  to  col- 
lecting material  for  his  literary  work.    Living, 
like  Charles  Lamb,  under  the  periodical  menace 
of  a  terrible  nervous  disease,  he  never  married, 
but  his  kindness,  his  generosity,  his  integrity  and 
loyalty  attracted  to  him  a  wide  circle  of  friends, 

240 


GUSTAVE   FLAUBERT  241 

and  he  was  loved  for  the  qualities  of  his  heart  as 
much  as  he  was  admired  for  the  greatness  of  his 
genius.  The  "  Journal  "  of  the  Goncourts  gives 
us  a  delightful  picture  of  Flaubert  as  the  centre 
of  the  most  famous  literary  coterie  in  the  last 
days  of  the  Second  Empire  ;  and  it  is  significant 
of  the  position  which  Flaubert  occupied  in  the 
estimation  of  his  contemporaries  that  all  the 
members  of  this  illustrious  and  heterogeneous 
group — Ste.  Beuve,  Renan,  Maupassant,  Daudet, 
Zola — agreed  in  hailing  Gustave  Flaubert  as  the 
master  and  creator  of  a  new  form  of  French  art. 


II 

Literature  has  its  martyrs,  like  religion  and 
politics,  and  Flaubert  may  be  considered  pre- 
eminently as  one  of  the  mart5rrs  of  the  literary 
craft.  A  bachelor  without  a  family,  an  agnostic 
without  a  creed,  an  artist  without  mundane 
interests,  Flaubert's  whole  soul  was  inamersed 
in  and  sacrificed  to  his  art.  Literature  was  his 
goddess.  For  her  he  lived.  No  writer  ever 
conceived  a  higher  ideal  of  his  mission.  In  the 
service  of  literature  he  spent  a  life  of  unre- 
mitting toil,  submitting  to  what  he  called  the 
tortures  of  style — "  les  a&es  du  style  '* — polish- 


242       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

ing  every  sentence,  again  and  again  rewriting 
every  page,  spending  seven  years  over  "  Madame 
Bovary,"  thirteen  years  over  '"  Bouvard  et 
Pecuchet,"  and  spending  thirty  years  between 
the  beginning  and  the  end  of  the  "  Temptation 
of  St.  Anthony/'  Under  those  conditions,  it  is 
not  to  be  wondered  at  that,  although  Flaubert 
started  writing  at  seventeen,  and  although  he 
wrote  continually  and  methodically  till  the  hour 
of  his  death,  he  only  managed  to  publish  six 
volumes  in  all.  But  each  one  of  those  six 
volumes  is  stamped  with  his  genius,  and  is 
assured  of  immortality. 


Ill 

He  was  a  strange  combination  of  the  roman- 
ticist and  of  the  realist.  He  was  brought  up  on 
Chateaubriand  and  Victor  Hugo,  and  for  both 
he  professed  boundless  admiration.  He  had  the 
romanticist's  love  of  form  and  colour ;  he  had 
his  exoticism,  his  haunting  sense  of  beauty,  his 
worship  of  Art  for  Art's  sake.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  had  the  realist's  rigid  loyalty  to  and 
reverence  for  truth ;  he  had  the  habit  of  scru- 
pulous and  minute  observation,  the  hatred  of  cant 
and   self-delusion.    And  this   double   blend   of 


^■w:H.tAlrPv^4 


GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT,  NATU8  1821,  OBIIT  1880. 


244      THE   FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

romanticism  and  realism  is  revealed  in  the 
dual  natm:e  of  his  work.  Nothing  could  be 
more  unlike  '*  Madame  Bovary/'  which  is  a 
commonplace  narrative  of  everyday  life,  than 
"  Salambo,"  which  is  a  resplendent  resurrection 
of  Carthaginian  civilization.  Nothing  could  be 
less  unlike  the  "  Temptation  of  St.  Anthony '' 
than  the  "  Education  Sentiment  ale  "  or  than 
the  striking  but  disappointing  '*  Bouvard  et 
Pecuchet." 

IV 

Gustave  Flaubert  is  the  spiritual  father  of  the 
modern  French  naturalist  school.  All  the  novels 
of  Zola  and  Maupassant,  of  Daudet  and  the 
brothers  De  Goncourt  may  be  said  to  proceed 
from  "  Madame  Bovary "  (1857),  which  has 
become  one  of  the  milestones  of  French  fiction. 
"  Madame  Bovary  "  is  the  most  characteristic, 
as  well  as  the  highest,  expression  of  Flaubert's 
genius,  and  is  probably,  with  "  Anna  Karenina," 
the  greatest  novel  of  world  literature.  It  is  the 
simple  life-story  of  a  farmer's  daughter  who  has 
been  educated  above  her  station,  and  has  been 
imbued  with  romantic  notions.  Having  only 
received  from  that  education  both  a  distaste 
for  the  humdrum  duties  of  country  life,  and  social 
ambitions  and  intellectual  aspirations  doomed 


GUSTAVE   FLAUBERT  245 

to  disappointment,  she  falls  an  easy  prey- 
to  an  ill-regulated  mind  and  to  ill-disciplined 
emotions.  "  Madame  Bovary "  is  the  eternal 
bankruptcy  of  romance  and  sentiment  in  con- 
flict with  the  hard  and  sordid  facts  of  real  life. 

On  its  appearance  "  Madame  Bovary " 
created  universal  sensation,  and  it  is  one  of  the 
ironies  of  literary  history  that  its  author  was 
prosecuted  for  immorality  by  the  most  immoral 
generation  of  modern  French  history,  the  genera- 
tion of  the  Third  Napoleon.  French  public 
opinion  has  moved  a  long  way  since  those  im- 
perial days ;  but  British  pubUc  opinion  still 
continues  to  taboo  one  of  the  most  wonderful 
productions  of  French  literature.  The  fact  is 
all  the  more  strange  when  we  remember  that 
"  Madame  Bovary ""  is  supremely  moral  and 
essentially  puritan,  as  moral,  indeed,  and  as 
puritan  as  **  Anna  Karenina,"  of  which  it  con- 
stantly reminds  us.  Unlike  "  Greorge  Sand " 
and  like  **  Anna  Karenina,"  "  Madame  Bovary  " 
does  not  give  us  the  romance  of  unlawful  passion, 
but  only  its  tragedy.  "  Madame  Bovary  "  is 
no  "  Dame  aux  Camelias.'"  A  relentless  Nemesis 
attends  every  deed  of  the  bourgeois  heroine,  and 
she  is  foredoomed  to  disaster  and  suicide  for 
breaking  the  laws  of  society  and  of  traditional 
morality. 


246       THE  FRENCH  EENASCENCE 


Flaubert  owes  nothing  to  adventitious  circum- 
stances or  to  meretricious  ornament.  We  are 
repelled  rather  than  attracted  by  the  sombre 
atmosphere  of  his  novels.  The  author  belongs 
to  a  generation  of  shattered  ideals,  culminating 
in  the  disasters  of  Metz  and  Sedan.  And  he  is 
a  consistent  pessimist.  He  is  far  more  of  a 
pessimist  than  the  Russian  novelists,  for  in 
Dostoievsky  and  Tolstoy  through  the  gloom  and 
the  darkness  there  always  pierces  the  light  of 
love  and  faith.  But  in  Flaubert  no  ideal  relieves 
the  dreary  monotony  and  mediocrity  of  existence. 
No  sympathy  attaches  him  to  his  middle-class 
heroines.  He  only  sees  beauty  and  grandeur  in 
his  art ;  but  the  admiration  which  his  art  evokes 
is  that  evoked  by  a  finished  piece  of  statuary. 
If  it  has  the  beauty  of  marble,  it  also  has  its 
hardness  and  frigidity. 

It  is,  therefore,  not  mainly  by  virtue  of  the 
human  truth  which  they  contain,  nor  by  virtue 
of  the  human  ideals  and  sympathies  which 
they  inspire,  that  Flaubert's  novels  will  live. 
Bather  will  they  live  by  virtue  of  the  supreme 
excellence  of  their  form.  Flaubert's  writing 
is  the  high-water  mark  of  French  style,  perfect 
in  rhjrthm  and  cadence,  perfect  in  the  adaptation 


GUSTAVE   FLAUBEKT  247 

of  expression  to  thought.  They  reveal  to  the 
student  the  possibilities  of  the  French  language 
when  handled  by  a  master  of  the  literary  craft. 
Nobody  in  our  generation  pays  any  heed  to 
Flaubert's  grandiloquent  theories  of  "  Art  for 
Art's  sake.''  Yet  Flaubert's  reputation  has 
been  steadily  rising,  and  will  continue  to 
rise,  and  Flaubert  has  become  to-day,  by  the 
consent  and  admiration  of  all  those  who  are 
competent  to  judge,  one  of  the  fixed  stars  in 
the  empyrean  of  classic  French  literature. 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 


MAURICE   MAETERLINCK 


To  an  outside  observer  the  biography  of 
Maeterlinck  seems  without  incident  and  ahnost 
without  events.  His  life  flows  like  a  tranquil 
river  with  clear  and  deep  waters  through  a 
verdant  plain.  The  only  events  of  his  external 
life,  in  intimate  communion  with  Nature,  are 
the  succession  of  seasons,  the  annual  migrations 
from  town  to  country,  from  the  North  to  the 
South  of  France.  The  only  events  of  his  in- 
tellectual life  are  the  dates  of  publication  of  his 
works,  which  mark  the  stages  of  his  literary 
career  like  the  milestones  on  a  triumphal  road- 
But  that  even  and  uniform  external  life  conceals 
an  adventurous  inner  life,  filled  with  vicissitudes, 
culminating  in  crises  and  sudden  catastrophes, 
in  developments  and  renewals,  in  revolutions 
of  thought  and  revelations  of  love.  What  an 
enormous  distance  between  the  starting  point 
and  the  final  goal,  between  the  spectral  and 
terrifying  world  of  the  "  Princess  Maleine  ''  and 
the  luminous  and  joyous  visions  of  "  Joyzelle  " 
and  **  Monna  Vanna,"  from  the  "  Treasure  of 

260 


MAURICE   MAETERLINCK         251 

the  Humble  "  to  the  "  Buried  Temple  "  !  And 
is  it  not  his  own  personal  experience  which  he 
has  summed  up,  when  he  lays  down  this  pro- 
position, which  reappears  like  a  "  leitmotiv  " 
in  the  "  Treasure  of  the  Humble "  and  in 
**  Wisdom  and  Destiny "'  :  that  the  only  true 
human  dramas  are  the  dramas  of  the  Soul,  and 
that  the  least  interesting,  the  most  monotonous,, 
the  dullest  lives,  like  that  of  Charlotte  Bronte,, 
are  often  the  most  intense,  those  which  are 
richest  in  movement  and  passion  ? 

II 

A  Fleming  like  de  Koster,  like  Rodenbach, 
like  Verhaeren,  like  Van  Lerberghe,  like 
Eeckhoud,  singularly  enough  like  most  Belgian 
writers  who  use  French  as  the  vehicle  of  their 
thought,  born  in  1862,  in  Ghent,  the  ancient 
and  glorious  and  turbulent  city  of  Van  Artevelde 
and  Charles  V,  Maeterlinck  always  remained 
loyal  to  the  spirit  of  his  native  town,  and  his 
greatness,  like  that  of  the  writers  whom  I  have 
just  mentioned,  is  precisely  due  to  that  loyalty 
which  he  has  retained  to  the  spirit  of  his  country. 
He  has  not,  like  the  Belgian  writers  of  the 
Walloon  provinces,  allowed  his  personality  and 
his  originality  to  be  submerged  by  French  or 


252      THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

Belgian  influences.  He  will  be  in  the  history 
of  French  letters  the  representative  of  the 
Flemish  people,  the  admirable  product  of  the 
cross  fertilization  of  the  Teutonic  genius,  refined 
in  the  Flemish  people  by  centuries  of  culture. 
Descended,  like  Goethe,  from  an  old  family  of 
honest  burgesses,  Maeterlinck  owes  to  his  descent 
a  rich  inheritance  of  solid  qualities,  of  practical 
sense,  of  ponderation,  and  that  faculty  of 
patient  and  minute  observation  which  is  re- 
vealed in  "  The  Life  of  the  Bee  '' :  in  one  word, 
all  those  gifts  which  have,  as  it  were,  ballasted 
the  winged  imagination  of  the  poet.  And, 
finally,  a  Catholic  and  a  pupil  of  the  Jesuits, 
he  owes  to  his  religious  education,  the  pre- 
occupation of  what  is  beyond  ratiocination, 
the  metaphysical  need,  the  comprehension  of 
the  spiritual  life,  and  of  the  candid  faith  of  the 
simple  and  of  the  humble,  and  when  in  later 
life  he  rejected  the  supernatural,  he  retained 
the  sense  of  mystery,  and  his  soul  continued 
to  haunt  the  ruins  of  Gothic  cathedrals. 


Ill 

To  indulge  the  wishes  of  his  family,  Maeterlinck 
followed  the  study  of  the  Law,  and  eventually 
became  a  member  of  the  Ghent  Bar.    He  is 


MAURICE   MAETERLINCK         253 

even  said  to  have  pleaded  in  the  Flemish  language 
the  cause  of  the  widow  and  the  orphan.  But 
the  pedantry  and  the  formalism  of  the  professors 
of  Ghent  University,  as  he  has  often  confided 
to  the  writer  of  these  pages,  inspired  in  him  a 
profound  repugnance  for  jurisprudence,  and 
already  on  the  college  benches  Maeterlinck 
turned  away  from  a  legal  career,  with  its  lucra- 
tive prizes,  towards  the  distant  and  uncertain 
future  of  Art  and  Poetry. 

He  started  in  his  literary  career  at  the  critical 
and  decisive  moment  when  his  native  country 
was  passing  through  a  complete  social  and 
intellectual  transformation.  In  that  admirable 
outburst  of  talent,  which  is  called  "  Young 
Belgium,"  the  first  writings  of  Maeterlinck 
compelled  attention  and  revealed  a  new  and 
mysterious  force.  But  it  is  highly  probable 
that  his  original  and  strange  genius,  both  simple 
and  complex,  both  naive  and  subtle,  would  not 
have  been  known  outside  the  esoteric  circle  of 
a  happy  few,  and  that  it  could  not  for  a  very 
long  time  have  imposed  itself  to  universal 
admiration,  but  for  the  famous  article  of  Octave 
Mirbeau,  published  in  the  Figaro  in  the  month 
of  August,  in  the  year  of  grace  1890.  This 
article  revealed  to  the  world  that  a  new  Shake- 
speare   had    just    appeared    in    Belgian    Gaul. 


254       THE  FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

Hitherto  almost  unknown,  Maeterlinck,  at 
twenty-eight  years,  owing  to  that  paper  of 
Mirbeau,  suddenly  became  a  star  of  the  first 
magnitude  :  a  memorable  example,  let  it  be 
said  in  passing,  of  the  influence  of  literary  criti- 
cism on  the  fate  of  literary  masterpieces. 


IV 

The  clarion  ring  of  Mirbeau  is  like  an  appeal 
irom  literary  France  to  young  Belgium.  Maeter- 
linck answers  the  appeal,  and  accepts  the 
invitation  which  is  sent  to  him  by  France,  ever 
generous  and  hospitable  to  genius.  He  leaves 
Eelgium ;  but  he  leaves  it  not  like  a  writer 
uprooted  from  his  native  soil,  but  like  an  am- 
bassador who  continues  to  represent  and  to 
defend  abroad  the  dignity  of  the  country  which 
sends  him.  Henceforth  Maeterlinck  will  be 
in  France  and  in  the  world  the  plenipotentiary 
of  Belgian  letters.  Moreover,  although  he 
settles  in  Paris,  he  will  not  lose  himself,  like 
so  many  other  poets,  in  the  whirl  of  Parisian 
life.  He  will  not  compromise  his  originality. 
He  will  not  allow  himself  to  be  turned  away 
from  his  path  either  by  the  flattery  of  literary 
circles  or  by  the  ridicule  of  the  boulevards.  As 
a  dramatist,  he  will  content  himself  with  gather- 


%-  Vx 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK.    NATU8  1863. 


256        THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

ing  psychological  documents,  and  to  study  the 
infinitely  diverse  stage  of  life.  As  a  thinker 
and  moralist,  he  will  be  content  to  observe  with 
the  detachment  of  the  contemplative  mind  the 
most  prodigious  human  agglomeration  of  our 
planet.  But  the  observation  of  the  human 
hive  turns  him  so  little  away  from  his  habitual 
occupations  that  he  continues  to  investigate 
in  his  Paris  study,  in  his  glass  hives,  the  manners 
and  habits  of  the  City  of  Bees. 


The  ten  years  passed  in  Paris  are  decisive 
for  the  intellectual  formation  of  Maeterlinck, 
and  mark  the  maturity  of  his  genius.  In  the 
full  consciousness  and  possession  of  his  powers, 
in  the  radiation  of  glory  which,  like  dawn, 
illumines  his  youth,  and  soon  after,  in  the 
burning  rays  of  a  great  love,  his  thought  expands, 
his  art  becomes  stronger  and  more  precise,  more 
simple  and  expressive,  and  reveals  itself  in 
works  more  and  more  exquisite,  more  and  more 
harmonious  in  form,  more  and  more  simple  and 
classical,  the  marvellous  blossom  of  his  fortieth 
year. 

But  in  the  very  zenith  of  his  fame,  Maeterlinck 
deserts  the  capital  which  acclaims  him.    Even 


MAUKICE   MAETERLINCK         257 

so  the  Roman  general  returned  to  his  plough  on 
the  morrow  of  a  victory.  For  Maeterlinck,  more 
so  even  than  his  friend  and  countryman,  Ver- 
haeren,  has  a  horror  of  the  "  ville  tentaculaire  " 
— the  "  tentacular "  cities — and  he  has  the 
yearning  and  the  nostalgia  for  Nature.  The 
artist  who  has  written  admirable  pages  on 
Silence  has  fled  notoriety  and  noise  with  as 
much  eagerness  as  Victor  Hugo  sought  them. 
Henceforth  Maeterlinck  lives  in  the  solitude  of 
the  country,  propitious  to  long  and  deep  medita- 
tion. In  his  biennial  migrations  he  follows  the 
sun  in  his  course.  At  the  approach  of  winter 
he  migrates  south  with  the  swallows.  With  the 
return  of  spring  he  ascends  again  to  the  north. 


VI 

And  as  if  everything  were  to  be  pre-established 
harmony  in  this  so-well-ordained  existence,  and 
as  if  to  provide  appropriate  surroundings  for 
his  genius,  Maeterlinck  divides  the  year  between 
the  Mediaeval  and  Gothic  Abbey  de  Saint 
Wandrille  and  the  sunny  mansion  of  Grasse. 
The  ruins  of  St.  Wandrille  and  Grasse,  the  City 
of  Flowers !  Do  these  names  not  symbolize, 
and  do  not  they  render  visible  the  two  con- 
tradictory forms  of  that  complex  genius,  both 


258      THE   FEENCH   EENASCENCE 

romantic  and  classical  ? — on  the  one  hand,  the 
feudal  ruin,  inhabited  by  ghosts  and  tragic 
memories ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  per- 
fumed hillsides  of  Pagan  Provence. 


VII 

Thus  appears  to  us  in  broad  outline  the  life  of 
Maurice  Maeterlinck,  and  the  beauty,  the  sim- 
plicity, and  the  harmony  of  this  life  make  us 
surmise  that  the  man  is  even  superior  to  the 
writer.  No  one  who  has  had  the  privilege  of 
meeting  the  author  of  "  Wisdom  and  Destiny  '* 
but  has  been  at  once  conquered  by  the  charm 
and  the  moral  strength  which  emanates  from  his 
personality,  and  has  been  fascinated  by  the 
hypnotism  of  his  limpid  and  steady  glance. 

The  superficial  reader  who  would  try  to  form  an 
image  of  Maeterlinck  from  his  first  drama  would 
probably  represent  him  under  the  traditional 
figure  of  the  romantic  or  decadent  poet,  pallid 
and  dishevelled,  Bohemian  and  neurotic.  It  is 
useless  to  say  that  Maeterlinck  does  not  in  the 
least  resemble  this  imaginary  portrait.  The 
dramatist  who  has  evoked  so  many  phantoms 
and  visions  of  terror  has  nothing  about  him 
which  is  either  spectral  or  transparent,  and  he 
does  not  inspire  any  terror. 


MAUEICE   MAETERLINCK         259 

VIII 

Physically,  Maeterlinck  is  a  solid  and  almost 
stolid  country  gentleman,  fond  of  outdoor  sports, 
a  fervent  lover  of  boxing,  of  the  motor-car,  and 
especially  of  the  motor-bicycle.  And  that 
idealist  poet  is,  in  real  life,  a  man  of  strict  order 
and  almost  a  business  man.  To  borrow  an 
expression  from  Nietzsche,  he  comes  nearer  to 
the  "  Apollonian ""  than  to  the  "  Dionysian  " 
type.  He  has  more  aflSnity  with  Goethe  than 
with  Baudelaire  or  Verlaine.  Like  Goethe,  he 
has  practised  his  theories,  he  has  Hved  his  philo- 
sophy. He  is  the  wise  man  who  knows  how  to 
T^anquish  and  control  destiny. 


THE   CONDEMNATION   OF 
MAETERLINCK 


THE   CONDEMNATION  OP 
MAETERLINCK 

Dedicated  without  permission  to  my  friend 
(t.  K,  Chesterton 

I 
Roma  locuta  est.  Once  more  Eome  has  spoken, 
and  she  has  spoken,  as  is  her  wont,  with  no 
uncertain  voice.  She  has  condemned  the  works 
of  Maeterlinck,  and  she  has  condemned  them  one 
and  all.  The  Belgian  writer  has  thus  joined  the 
band  of  the  excommunicate  authors  who  are 
outside  the  pale  of  Orthodox  literature — an  illus- 
trious band  which  includes  Dante  and  Milton, 
Bacon  and  Montaigne,  Hume  and  Locke,  Rous- 
seau and  Voltaire,  Pascal  and  Lamennais,  Balzac 
and  Renan,  Loisy  and  Laurent.  No  Catholic 
parent  henceforth  shall  be  allowed  to  take  his 
children  to  see  the  '*  Blue  Bird,''  or  to  hear  the 
impassioned  music  of  "  Pelleas  and  MeUsande." 

II 

If  the  recent  decree  of  the  Holy  Congregation 
of  the  Index  merely  meant  a  solemn  declaration 
that   the   works    of   Maeterlinck   were    neither 

263 


CONDEMNATION  OF  MAETEELINCK    263 

Catholic  nor  Orthodox,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
the  measure  would  be  amply  justified.     It  is, 
indeed,  somewhat  astonishing  that  to  a  large 
number  of  Maeterlinck's  admirers  the  condemna- 
tion should  have  come  as  a  surprise,  and  it  is 
significant  that  a  good  many  candid  Protestants, 
with  that  delightful  vagueness  and  comprehen- 
siveness characteristic  of  our  latter-day  religion, 
should    have  fondly  imagined  that  Maeterlinck 
is   something   like  a  very  broad-minded   Non- 
conformist.    They  conceive  that  because  he  is 
a  mystic  he  must  needs  be  a  Christian  mystic, 
that  because  he  has  written  the  "  Treasure  of 
the  Humble  ''  he  must  needs  be  imbued  with  the 
humility    of    St.    Francis.     In    point    of    fact, 
Maeterlinck  is  a  humanist,  an  agnostic,  an  un- 
compromising secularist.     "  Wisdom  and  Des- 
tiny "  is  the  work  of  a  neo-Stoic.     The  ''  Life  of 
the  Bee  "  is  the  work  of  a  naturalist.     "  Monna 
Vanna  "  breathes  the  spirit  of  the  Italian  Re- 
nascence.    There  is  hardly  a  page  of  the  writings 
of  Maeterlinck  that  can  be  said  to  owe  its  inspira- 
tion to   Catholicism,    unless   the    haunting  ob- 
session of  death  and  the  terror  of  the  mysterious 
and    elemental   forces    of   Nature,   which   give 
the  atmosphere  of  the  earlier  plays,  may  sug- 
gest an  afl&nity  to  the  darker  side  of   popular 
religion. 


264      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

Certainly  in  his  later  works  Maeterlinck  is  at 
the  antipodes  of  Christianity,  more  so  even  than 
Nietzsche,  the  anti-Christ.  For  Nietzsche  only 
attacks  Christianity,  MaeterHnck  ignores  it. 
Nietzsche  only  hates  Christianity,  Maeterlinck 
is  indifferent  to  it ;  and,  in  the  words  of  the 
French  moralist.  La  Bruyere  :  "  II  y  a  plus  loin 
de  Tamour  a  Tindifference,  que  de  Tamour  a  la 
haine ''  ('*  There  is  a  greater  distance  from  love 
to  indifference  than  from  love  to  hatred  "). 


Ill 

So  far,  therefore,  from  its  being  surprising  that 
the  writings  of  Maeterlinck  should  have  been 
condemned,  the  wonder  is  that  the  condemna- 
tion should  have  come  so  late,  and  that  the  Holy 
Congregation  of  the  Index  should  have  waited 
for  twenty  long  years  before  putting  in  operation 
its  once  formidable  machinery.  For  twenty 
long  years  the  works  of  the  Belgian  writer  have 
been  read  in  the  two  hemispheres,  and  have  been 
accepted  as  those  of  a  prophet.  Honours  have 
been  showered  upon  him.  He  has  received  the 
Nobel  Prize,  as  the  most  inspired  exponent  of 
idealism.  Even  in  his  native  country,  and  under 
a  clerical  Government,  he  has  been  awarded  the 
highest  distinctions  within  the  gift  of  Royalty. 


CONDEMNATION  OF  MAETERLINCK     265 

In  Anglo-Saxon  and  in  Teutonic  countries  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  have  assimilated  his  teaching 
and  preaching,  millions  have  applauded  his  plays. 
During  all  those  years  his  ideas  have  had  time 
to  strike  root.  Yet  under  the  reign  of  Pius  X, 
the  most  mediaeval  of  modern  Popes,  the  Roman 
censors  had  hitherto  not  thought  fit  to  interfere. 
They  had  allowed  a  poisonous  doctrine  to 
permeate  the  mind  of  a  whole  generation. 


IV 

The  reason  why  Rome  has  delayed  so  long 
is  probably  that,  even  under  Pius  X  and  Cardinal 
Merry  del  Val,  it  has  been  realized  that  the 
Congregation  of  the  Index  belongs  to  a  bygone 
age.  In  the  Middle  Ages  it  might  be  easy  to 
destroy  a  few  manuscripts.  Even  at  the  time 
when  Milton  wrote  his  immortal  plea  for  the 
freedom  of  the  Press  it  might  be  comparatively 
easy  to  control  the  publisher  and  bookseller. 
But  in  the  days  of  the  rotary  press  and  the 
linotype  and  the  halfpenny  journal  the  censor- 
ship of  books  is  an  arbitrary,  dangerous,  and 
generally  a  futile  weapon.  It  is  arbitrary,  for 
even  a  hardworking  Roman  Congregation  can 
only  select  a  few  hundred  out  of  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  printed  books.     It  is  dangerous, 


266      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

because  it  is  apt  to  challenge  opposition  and 
rebellion.  It  is  futile,  because  it  usually 
defeats  its  own  ends,  and  the  placing  of  a  book 
on  the  Index  is  often  the  best  way  to  advertise 
it  and  to  stimulate  its  sale. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  in  every  case  the 
condemnation  of  a  book  has  no  effect  what- 
soever. On  the  contrary,  in  some  Catholic 
countries,  say,  in  out-of-the-way  parts  of  Belgium 
and  Canada,  of  Austria  and  Spain,  it  is  probably 
as  effective  to-day  as  it  would  have  been  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  Quite  recently  the  writer  of 
these  lines  had  an  entertaining  experience  of 
the  terror  which  the  Roman  Index  still  inspires 
in  the  mind  of  the  Catholic  population  of  Belgium, 
A  few  years  ago,  on  my  relinquishing  an  old 
chateau  in  a  Flemish  province,  a  neighbouring 
farmer  in  the  employment  of  my  family  kindly 
offered  to  store  my  books.  Last  autumn  I 
received  an  urgent  request  from  the  Belgian 
farmer  to  have  the  library  immediately  removed. 
The  farmer's  wife  had  discovered  many 
suspicious  volumes,  including  the  works  of 
Voltaire.  She  had  shown  them  to  Monsieur 
le  Cure.  He  had  told  her  that  on  no  account 
should  she  keep  those  books  in  the  house. 
Things  had  been  going  wrong  in  the  family  and 
on  the  farm.    A  hailstorm  had  damaged  the; 


CONDEMNATION  OF  MAETERLINCK    267 

crops.  There  had  been  illness  amongst  the 
children.  There  had  been  an  epidemic  among 
the  cattle.  And  neither  Monsieur  le  Cure  nor 
the  farmer's  wife  had  any  doubt  but  that  my 
books  were  responsible  for  those  domestic 
visitations  and  natural  calamities.  In  a  frenzy 
of  terror,  the  farmer's  wife  decided  to  burn  all 
the  books  in  her  charge,  and  she  would  have 
acted  on  her  decision  but  for  the  vigorous 
interposition  of  her  overlord.  It  was  with  a 
sigh  of  relief  that,  a  few  days  ago,  I  again  got 
possession  of  my  ill-fated  library,  which  had  so 
narrowly  escaped  an  ignominious  auto-da-fe 
at  the  hands  of  a  well-meaning  Flemish  rustic. 
From  the  above  incident  it  must  be  obvious 
that  there  are  still  classes  where  the  decrees  of 
the  Congregation  of  the  Index  continue  to  be. 
obeyed,  but  that  fact  ought  not  to  prejudice 
our  opinion  of  the  wisdom  or  unwisdom  of  the 
Roman  policy.  For  those  are  not  the  classes 
which  would  be  likely  to  purchase  the  works 
of  Maeterlinck,  or  which  would  be  affected  one 
way  or  the  other  by  the  decision  of  the  Roman 
authorities.  Nor  ought  we  to  trouble  about 
the  effect  produced  by  the  decrees  of  the  Index 
on  the  minds  of  non-Catholics  or  unbelievers. 
For  practical  purposes  the  only  class  to  be 
considered  are  the  educated   Catholics.    Now, 


268      THE   FEENCH  EENASCENCE 

educated  Catholics  seem  to  concern  themselves 
less  and  less  whether  a  book  is  placed  on  the 
Index  or  not,  and  they  seem  to  find  in  the 
armoury  of  Catholic  casuists  some  roundabout 
way  of  avoiding  the  prohibition.  French 
Catholics  know,  or  ought  to  know,  that  Montaigne 
and  Balzac  are  placed  on  the  Index,  yet  even 
devout  Catholics  continue  to  read  the  works 
of  Montaigne  and  Balzac.  And  one  cannot 
see  how  they  can  possibly  help  themselves.  As 
the  "  Index  Librorum  Prohibitorum  "  includes 
practically  every  classic  author  of  French 
literature,  it  would  be  impossible  for  Catholics 
to  attend  school,  to  pass  a  public  examination, 
or  to  receive  a  degree  if  they  did  trouble  them- 
selves about  ecclesiastic  prohibition.  The  only 
way  out  of  the  difficulty  is  to  consider  the  Index 
as  a  dead  letter. 

Judging,  then,  by  its  direct  results,  the  con- 
demnations of  the  Index  seem  to  be  futile.  So 
completely,  indeed,  are  the  decrees  of  the  Koman 
Congregation  disregarded  that  it  would  hardly 
be  worth  while  discussing  its  pronouncements 
if  the  mere  existence  and  procedure  of  the  sacred 
tribunal  did  not  raise  some  vital  issues,  if  it  did 
not  illustrate  some  of  the  most  objectionable 
methods  of  the  Roman  Curia. 


CONDEMNATION  OF  MAETERLINCK    269 

V 

For,  let  there  be  no  misconception,  the  Roman 
"  Index  Librorum  Prohibitorum  "  (I.L.P. !)  has 
little  in  conmion  with  the  British  censorship  of 
plays.  It  is  far  more  like  that  other  odious  and 
ominous  censorship  of  books  which  prevails  in 
Russia.  The  British  censorship  is  only  a  ridicu- 
lous but  innocuous  measure  of  literary  sanitation. 
It  is  defended  in  a  half-hearted  way  on  the  plea 
of  public  morality.  The  Roman  censorship  is 
defended  on  the  plea  of  dogma  and  faith.  The 
one  merely  involves  a  question  of  police ;  the 
other  involves  questions  of  vital  poUcy — it 
involves  a  fundamental  spiritual  principle.  The 
Roman  censorship  is  a  survival  from  the  days 
when  Church  and  State  were  identified,  and 
when  the  formidable  power  of  the  State  was 
used  to  enforce  the  decrees  of  the  Church. 
Rome  does  not  only  provide  us  with  her  own 
solution  of  all  problems,  human  and  divine — she 
forbids  us  even  to  consider  any  other  solution. 
She  decrees  not  only  that  we  shall  accept  her 
definition  of  truth,  but  that  we  shall  accept  it, 
not  as  the  result  of  personal  inquiry,  not  as  a 
conviction — that  is  to  say,  as  a  victory  of  truth 
over  error — not  as  the  revelation  of  our  conscience 
and  our  reason,  but  solely  on  the  authority  of 
the    Church.    Rome    insists    that    truth    shall 


270      THE   FEENCH   EENASCENCE 

remain  primarily  external,  imposed  from  outside 
and  from  above.  There  lies  the  supreme  inter- 
est of  such  apparently  trivial  incidents  as  the 
condemnation  of  Maeterlinck.  They  come  as  a 
timely  reminder  that  the  ways  of  the  Roman 
Curia  are  not  our  ways,  nor  in  my  opinion  the 
catholic  ways,  and  that  spiritual  liberty  and 
clerical  government  still  remain  contradictory 
terms.  But  if  the  contradiction  really  exists, 
ought  we  not  to  be  grateful  to  the  clerical  party, 
which  to-day  is  supreme  at  the  Vatican,  for 
leaving  no  ambiguity  in  a  matter  which  is  of 
such  moment  to  all  interested  in  the  religious 
controversies  of  our  time  ? 


PROFESSOR  BERGSON 


PROFESSOR  BERGSON 


In  the  year  of  grace  1887,  a  judge  of  the  Scottish 
Court  of  Session,  Lord  Adam  Gifford,  left  the 
sum  of  £80,000  to  the  four  Scottish  Universities 
for  the  endowment  of  four  Lectureships  on 
Natural  Theology,  with  the  explicit  object  of 
illustrating  the  relations  between  Science  and 
Religion.  Those  were  the  days  when  Science 
was  insolently  aggressive,  and  Religion  timidly 
apologetic ;  when  Religion  was  summoned  on 
the  first  day  of  each  month  in  every  popular 
magazine  to  appear  before  the  bar  of  Science  ; 
when  Huxley  and  Haeckel,  in  the  name  of 
Darwin,  claimed  to  answer  all  the  riddles  of  the 
Universe.  Lord  Gifford,  like  Lord  Beaconsfield, 
like  Mr.  Gladstone,  was  "  on  the  side  of  the 
angels,"  and  he  wanted  every  philosopher  to  be 
on  the  same  side.  But  although  he  was  a  pro- 
foundly religious  man,  he  was  also  a  consistent 
Liberal,  and  he  did  not  presume  to  hamper  in 
any  way  the  freedom  of  thought  of  the  philo- 

272 


PROFESSOR    BERGSON  273 

sophers    or    theologians    appointed    under    his 
bequest.    According  to  the  Trust  Deed  : 

"  The  lecturers  appointed  shall  be  subjected  to  no  test 
of  any  kind,  and  shall  not  be  required  to  take  any  oath, 
or  to  emit  or  subscribe  any  declaration  of  belief,  or  to 
make  any  promise  of  any  kind  ;  they  may  be  of  any  de- 
nomination whatever,  or  of  no  denomination  at  all ; 
they  may  be  of  any  rehgion  or  way  of  thinking,  or,  as  is 
sometimes  said,  they  may  be  of  no  religion  ;  or  they 
may  be  so-called  sceptics  or  agnostics  or  free-thinkers  ; 
provided  only  that  the  '  patrons '  will  use  dihgence  to 
secure  that  they  be  able,  reverent  men,  true  thinkers, 
sincere  lovers  of  and  earnest  inquirers  after  truth. 
I  wish  the  lecturers  to  treat  their  subjects  as  a  strictly 
natural  science,  the  only  science — that  of  Infinite  Being, 
without  reference  to  or  reliance  upon  any  supposed 
special,  exceptional  or  so-called  miraculous  revelation. 
The  lecturers  shall  be  under  no  restraint  whatever  in 
their  treatment  of  their  theme.  The  lectures  shall  be 
pubUc  and  popular — that  is,  open  not  only  to  students 
of  the  Universities,  but  to  the  whole  community,  without 
matriculation." 

The  Lectureships  on  Natural  Theology,  so 
munificently  endowed  by  Lord  Gifford,  have 
now  been  administered  for  twenty-five  years. 
It  is  highly  doubtful  whether  Lord  Gifford 
would  have  approved  of  many  of  the  discourses 
that  have  been  delivered  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Gifford  Trust,  but  it  must  be  admitted 
that  his  foundation  has  at  least  resulted  in  such 
masterpieces  as  James'  "  Varieties  of  Religious 


274      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

Expression/'  and,  generally,  in  a  succession 
of  brilliant  and  original  productions  elucidating 
from  every  point  of  view  the  relations  between 
Science  and  Theology.  That  satisfactory  result 
is  largely  due,  no  doubt,  to  the  Liberal  spirit 
of  the  founder.  But  it  is  due  also  to  the  generous 
policy  of  the  Scottish  Universities.  Whereas 
they  might  have  reserved  the  magnificent  prizes 
of  the  Gifford  lectureships  for  British  teachers, 
they  have  again  and  again  invited  representa- 
tives from  the  United  States  of  America,  and 
from  the  Continent  of  Europe .  They  have  invited 
Americans  like  Royce  and  William  James,  Dutch- 
men like  Tiele,  Germans  like  Pfleiderer,  French- 
men like  Boutroux,  and  last,  but  not  least, 
they  have  appointed  the  most  original  and  the 
most  profound  thinker  of  the  present  generation, 
Professor  Henri  Bergson,  who  inaugurated  his 
course  of  lectures  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh 
in  the  spring  of  1914. 

II 

Edinburgh  University  has  a  glorious  philo- 
sophical tradition  behind  her,  and  generations 
of  students  have  listened  to  many  a  brilliant 
discourse  since  the  distant  days  of  Hume  and 
Dugald  Stewart,  when  the  Scottish  metropolis 
was  one  of  the  intellectual  capitals  of  the  world. 


PROFESSOE   BERGSON  275 

But  no  such  gathering  ever  met  in  an  Edinburgh 
classroom  as  that  which  gave  so  enthusiastic 
a  welcome  tp  Professor  Henri  Bergson  on 
his  first  public  appearance. 

Hard-headed  Scottish  business  men  seemed 
to  have  suddenly  developed  an  appreciation 
of  the  graces  of  the  French  language.  Frivolous 
society  ladies  seemed  suddenly  to  have  developed 
a  taste  for  the  study  of  metaphysics.  Under 
any  circumstances  it  would  have  been  difficult 
to  interest  a  motley  crowd  in  the  fundamentals 
of  philosophy.  It  was  doubly  difficult  to  convey 
those  fundamentals  in  an  alien  tongue.  To 
attempt  such  an  achievement  seemed  an  im- 
possible wager.  But  Professor  Bergson  won 
the  wager.  For  the  audience  actually  under- 
stood. They  certainly  behaved  as  if  they  did. 
Not  only  did  they  listen  with  rapt  and  hushed 
attention,  not  forgetting  for  one  moment  that 
they  were  worshipping  at  the  shrine  of  philosophy, 
but  they  punctuated  with  restrained  applause 
every  passing  allusion.  They  followed  with  a 
discreet  smile  every  veiled  irony.  Altogether 
it  was  a  memorable  occasion.  It  was  a  striking 
testimony,  alike  to  the  intellectual  qualifications 
of  a  Scottish  audience,  to  the  genius  of  a  great 
French  thinker,  and  to  the  marvellous  possibilities 
of  the  French  language. 


276      THE   FRENCH  RENASCENCE 

III 

As  one  turned  one's  eyes  from  the  eager 
crowd  in  front  to  the  extraordinary  little  man 
on  the  platform,  one  could  not  help  asking  one- 
self how  the  lecturer  felt  about  that  universal 
popularity  which  follows  him  everywhere  with 
such  importunate  persistence.  Certainly  no 
man  ever  went  less  out  of  his  way  to  invite  and 
to  court  such  popular  favour.  Almost  until 
he  reached  maturity,  until  nearly  forty  years 
of  age,  Professor  Bergson  was  a  modest  teacher 
in  a  secondary  school,  and  every  one  of  the 
three  books  which  have  appeared  in  the  course 
of  a  quarter  of  a  century  was  the  outcome  of 
long  years   of   silent   and   solitary  meditation. 

And  ever  since  fame  has  forced  him  out  of 
his  voluntary  seclusion,  ever  since  universities 
and  learned  societies  of  both  hemispheres  have 
been  vying  with  one  another  to  do  him  honour, 
Professer  Bergson  has  seemed  even  less  inclined 
to  sacrifice  to  the  Idols  of  the  Tribe.  He  makes 
no  appeal  to  the  emotions.  There  is  no  attempt 
at  eloquence  or  rhetoric.  Short  of  stature,  of 
an  austere  and  ascetic  countenance,  suppressed 
in  his  gestures,  his  success  as  a  teacher  owes 
nothing  to  the  senses.  True,  his  appearance  is 
singularly  winning,  his  voice  is  musical,  and  his 


PROFESSOR   BERGSON  277 

delivery  graceful.  His  poetic  style  blossoms  out 
again  and  again  in  unexpected  metaphors.  His 
eagle  eye  shines  with  extraordinary  brightness. 
But  the  spell  of  the  speaker  is  entirely  the  spell 
of  personahty.  It  is  the  magic  of  transparent 
lucidity,  of  absolute  sincerity,  of  sterHng  in- 
tellectual integrity.  Professor  Bergson  carries 
conviction  to  his  hearers  because  a  profound 
conviction  animates  every  one  of  his  words. 

IV 

Professor  Bergson's  inaugural  address  was 
the  first  of  a  systematic  course  of  twenty-two 
lectures  on  the  "  Problem  of  Personality." 
It  is  too  soon  to  define  from  a  bare  outline  of 
the  first  discourse  the  precise  position  which 
the  French  philosopher  will  take  up,  or  even 
to  anticipate  the  general  drift  of  his  argument. 
But  those  who  were  already  acquainted  with 
the  work  of  the  French  philosopher  had  no 
difficulty  in  identifying  the  famiUar  features 
of  his  thought  and  the  peculiarities  of  his  method. 
One  recognized  his  profound  distrust  of  philo- 
sophical systems,  of  that "  mania  for  unification  " 
which  claims  to  sum  up  in  one  sweeping  formula 
all  the  riddles  of  the  universe.  One  recognized 
that    sense    of   the   concrete,    that    "  common 


278      THE   FKENCH   EENASCENCE 

sense  "  which  is  so  uncommon  amongst  meta- 
physicians, that  close  grip  of  actual  fact,  that 
caution  and  philosophical  humility  which 
neglects  no  aspect  of  reality,  which  utilizes 
even  the  most  minute  data  revealed  by  external 
observation  and  by  introspection.  One  admired 
that  gift  for  subtle  and  delicate  analysis  which 
is  ever  bringing  to  the  clear  light  of  day  facts 
buried  deep  down  in  the  recesses  of  the  inner 
consciousness.  And  last,  not  least,  one  admired 
the  encyclopaedic  knowledge  which  compels 
every  science  to  contribute  her  quota  to  the 
final  solution. 

And  together  with  the  method  and  the  general 
characteristics  of  the  thinker,  one  recognized 
the  original  attitude  which  Bergson  takes  up 
with  regard  to  fundamental  problems,  and  the 
impHcations  which  are  inseparably  associated 
with  his  philosophy.  One  recognized  the 
vigorous  protest  against  a  narrow  and  negative 
intellectualism  which  is  content  simply  to  deny 
what  it  is  powerless  to  explain.  One  recognized 
the  supremacy  of  the  intuitive  processes,  the 
primacy  of  the  will  which  goes  further  and 
deeper  than  the  arbitrary  judgments  of 
ratiocination.  And  above  all  one  recognized 
the  infinite  complexity  of  the  Universe,  a 
"  pluralistic  '*    Universe    of    free    personahties, 


il      '^.U.c^pi^- 


HENRI  BERGSON,  NATUS  1860. 


280      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

a  Universe  not  of  mechanical  forces,  nor  of 
regularly  recurrent  and  predictable  phenomena, 
but  a  Universe  ever  changing,  ever  moving, 
where  Time  is  not  an  empty  mathematical 
category,  where  Time  is  concrete  and  where 
Duration  is  creative,  a  Universe  which  does 
not  extend  before  us  in  vacant  space  like  a 
picture,  that  can  be  measured  in  so  many  inches, 
or  appraised  in  so  many  pounds  by  the  valuator, 
but  which  can  only  be  appreciated  as  a  creative 
masterpiece  by  the  aesthetic  and  intuitive  judg- 
ment of  the  artist. 


There  was  a  fair  representation  of  the  Churches 
amongst  the  Edinburgh  audience,  and  I  am 
afraid  that  many  a  young  clerical  believer  in 
the  new  philosophy  may  have  gone  away 
disappointed.  And  we  ought  to  sympathize 
with  their  disappointment.  After  all,  a  Gifford 
lecturer  may  be  expected  to  throw  some  light 
on  the  relation  of  philosophy  to  theology. 
Hitherto  Professor  Bergson  had  carefully  re- 
frained from  encroaching  on  the  province  of 
the  Divine.  His  three  published  works  are  all 
concerned  exclusively  with  biology,  with  psy- 
chology, and  with  what  the  Germans  call 
*'  Erkentnisslehxe.''    The  special  interest  which 


PROFESSOK   BERGSON  281 

attached  to  the  French  philosopher's  public 
appearance  in  Scotland  was  partly  due  to  the 
eager  expectation  that  the  forthcoming  Gifford 
lectures  were  going  to  be  associated  with  an 
entirely  new  development  of  his  philosophy. 

The  anticipations  of  the  public  were  all  the 
more  justified,  because,  even  though  Bergson 
had  never  crossed  the  boundaries  of  theology, 
he  certainly  seemed  to  have  cleared  the  path- 
way for  the  theologian.  Nor  is  it  the  result 
of  any  mere  vagary  of  fashion  that  his  doctrines 
should  have  been  acclaimed  by  religious  thinkers 
of  all  countries.  All  previous  metaphysicians 
moved  and  revolved  in  a  vicious  circle.  Bergson 
broke  through  that  iron  circle  of  mechanism 
and  liberated  the  human  soul  from  the  impotence 
of  scepticism  and  the  depression  of  determinism. 
He  dethroned  intellectual  analysis  from  its 
proud  place,  and  put  intuition  in  its  place.  He 
takes  his  stand  in  the  very  centre  of  life.  In- 
deed, his  philosophy  may  be  best  defined  a 
philosophy  of  life  and  a  philosophy  of  action. 
It  leaves  room  for  the  insertion  of  human  free- 
will. It  acknowledges  with  the  theologian  the 
twin  concepts  of  the  creative  and  the  miraculous. 
Is  not  life  itself  a  standing  miracle  ?  Is  not 
every  stage  in  the  process  of  evolution  a  creative 
process,  an  "  elan  vital ''  of  inventive  genius  ? 


282      THE   FKENCH   EENASCENCE 

VI 

So  far,  then,  the  philosophy  of  Bergson 
has  proved  an  inspiration  to  the  student  of 
Ethics  and  of  Theology,  but  it  is  not  necessary 
for  the  Bergsonian  to  travel  a  long  way  before 
he  realizes  that  even  to  the  liberal  student  of 
Christian  Theology  the  new  philosophy  raises 
as  many  problems  as  it  solves,  and  that  it 
bristles  with  contradictions. 

For  Bergsonism  is  pre-eminently  the  philo- 
sophy of  Change,  of  a  ceaseless  Becoming. 
Theology  is  concerned  with  the  Immutable 
and  the  Everlasting. 

In  Bergson's  conception  Time  and  Duration 
are  the  very  web  and  woof  of  life.  Theology 
is  merged  in  Eternity. 

Bergsonism  is  the  philosophy  of  Chance,  of 
accidental  variations.  Creative  evolution  pro- 
ceeds by  eruptive,  explosive  vital  outbursts. 
Religion  is  based  on  finality.  All  Christian 
theology  is  Teleology. 

Bergsonism  emphasizes  nothing  more  con- 
stantly than  diversity.  Creative  evolution  has 
again  and  again  been  deflected  on  divergent 
lines.  The  World  of  Instinct  follows  one  line 
of  development.  The  World  of  Intellect  follows 
another.      On  the  contrary,   religion  is  based 


PROFESSOR   BERGSON  283 

on  unity  and  continuity.  Revealed  religion, 
supernatural  religion,  is  the  deposit  of  a  revelation 
vouchsafed  to  mankind  once  and  for  all.  The 
God  of  Christianity  is  a  personal  God,  trans- 
cendent and  distinct  from  His  creatures,  not 
diffused  in  His  creation. 

Such  are  some  of  the  difficulties  which  would 
no  doubt  force  themselves  upon  the  mind  of 
Professor  Bergson's  clerical  hearers.  It  is  an 
interesting  subject  for  speculation,  whether  in 
his  forthcoming  course  he  will  address  himself 
to  answer  those  questions,  or  whether,  as  he 
has  done  in  the  past,  he  will  stop  short  of  the 
answer  and  of  the  ultimate  reahty  ?  Will  he 
refrain  from  putting  the  coping-stone  to  his 
philosophical  structure,  or  will  the  problem  of 
personahty  and  its  survival  after  death  lead 
the  speaker  on  to  that  threshold  where  philo- 
sophy ends  and  where  theology  begins  and 
reigns  supreme  ?  The  Edinburgh  Gifford 
lectures  are  giving  the  French  philosopher  his 
opportunity.     Is  he  going  to  seize  it  ? 


RAYMOND   POINCAR^ 


EAYMOND  POINCARB 


It  is  often  contended  tliat  democracy  does  not 
care  for  culture,  and  that  the  people  have  an 
instinctive  distrust  for  the  scholar  and  the  artist. 
Two  recent  events  are  an  emphatic  refutation  of 
such  a  contention.  Almost  simultaneously  the 
two  greatest  democracies  of  the  world,  having  to 
choose  the  head  of  the  Executive,  have  dehber- 
ately  chosen  two  men  of  letters  :  the  American 
Repubhc  selected  an  eminent  University  pro- 
fessor ;  the  French  Republic  selected  a  member 
of  the  French  Academy,  one  of  the  forty 
Immortals. 

II 

I  have  before  me  three  volumes  of  the  works 
of  the  new  French  President.  They  are  mainly 
composed  of  literary  essays,  of  political  and 
forensic  speeches.  They  are  distinguished  by 
all  those  qualities  which  we  are  accustomed  to 
associate  with  the  best  French  writing  :  lucidity 
and  logic,  symmetry  and  proportion,  ready  wit 
and  versatility.    Whether  the  author  sings  the 

286 


KAYMOND  POINCARE  287 

praise  of  Joan  of  Arc,  or  of  the  modern  French 
novehst ;  whether  he  brings  in  a  financial 
measure  or  an  Education  Bill,  his  thought  is 
uniformly  perspicuous  and  his  language  in- 
variably felicitous.  But,  paradoxical  though  it 
may  appear,  the  chief  merit  of  those  three 
volumes  to  the  outside  reader  lies  in  their  total 
lack  of  originality.  For  if  M.  Poincare's  essays 
and  speeches  did  reveal  any  striking  originality 
they  would  only  reflect  the  personality  of  the 
writer.  On  the  contrary,  being  entirely  devoid 
of  originality,  they  express  all  the  more  faith- 
fully the  opinions  of  millions  of  Frenchmen. 
And  for  the  first  citizen  of  a  democracy  it  is  so 
much  more  important  to  be  the  spokesman 
of  millions  of  his  fellow-citizens  than  to  merely 
express  his  own  vision  of  the  world. 


Ill 

A  perfect  equipoise  of  judgment,  an  instinct 
for  realities,  a  sense  of  measure,  what  the  French 
call  "  le  juste  milieu,""  and  what  Matthew  Arnold 
would  have  called  "  sweetness  and  light,"  are 
amongst  the  most  obvious  qualities  of  Poincare's 
writings.  He  is  a  man  of  principle  ;  he  is  not 
a  mere  opportunist  and  a  time-server. 

"  The  foundation  of   all  politics  is   ethical. 


288      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

Politics  are  founded  on  a  belief  in  goodness, 
in  justice,  in  the  love  of  truth,  in  the  respect  of 
human  cons-cience,  in  the  destinies  of  our  country. 
Politics  which  are  worthy  of  the  name  cannot 
live  from  day  to  day  on  empirical  measures  and 
contradictory   expedients/' 

At  the  same  time  he  is  not  a  man  of  Utopias. 

"  The  French  people  have  faith  in  principles. 
They  believe  in  the  ideal.  They  have  an  innate 
taste  and  a  traditional  need  for  general  ideas, 
but  they  do  not  confuse  general  ideas  with  vague 
ideas,  principles  with  formulas,  ideals  with 
vacant  vocables.  They  want  solid  living 
realities." 

He  is  a  genuine  democrat.  But  he  is  also  a 
resolute  anti-socialist .  He  believe  s  in  the  French 
Revolution,  but  he  stops  at  1789  ;  he  does  not 
go  as  far  as  1793.  He  does  not  think  that  the 
Republic  can  be  saved  by  a  Reign  of  Terror. 

*'  With  the  party  of  agitation,  of  violence,  of 
disorder,  no  political  understanding  is  possible. 
A  Government  which  would  seek  it  would  abdi- 
cate its  authority,  and  would  itself  defy  the  law. 
A  Government  which  would  submit  to  it,  or 
which  would  not  repudiate  it,  would  be  swept 
away  by  its  own  hypocritical  and  equivocal 
policy." 

He  believes  in  the  supremacy  of  individual 


*l1 


■  ■  ^ft':^  .'Vi'-;^i(    i 


i 
RAYMOND  POINCAR^,  NATU8  1860. 


290      THE   FKENCH   RENASCENCE 

reason  and  conscience.  He  is  determined  to 
resist  the  tyranny  of  the  Church.  But  he  is  no 
less  determined  to  resist  the  tyranny  of  the  State. 
"  The  action  of  Government  cannot  extend  to 
the  intimate  thoughts  of  individuals.  Political 
life  is  not  the  final  end  of  Man.  Human  energies 
which  put  in  motion  the  social  mechanism  are  not 
entirely  absorbed  by  it.  The  State  cannot  be 
allowed  to  encroach  on  the  liberty  of  human 
reason,  and  this  liberty  outside  the  sphere  of 
the  State  constitutes  the  inner  life  of  the  Soul. 
Om^  individual  energies  are  not  wholly  attracted 
and  captured  by  the  social  mechanism.  Human 
Society  is  made  of  free  volitions,  and  it  is  only 
on  an  absolute  respect  for  human  dignity  that 
the  greatness  of  a  community  can  be  established.'" 

IV 

It  would  be  unfair  to  call  Monsieur  Poincare  a 
Conservative,  and  it  is  an  appellation  which  his 
supporters  would  particularly  resent,  for  the 
word  **  Conservative "'  is  in  very  bad  odour  in 
France,  and  is  synonymous  with  reaction.  He 
delights  in  appearing  as  a  Modern  of  the  Moderns. 
He  glorifies  recent  tendencies  in  Literature  and 
Art.  Yet  his  sympathies  are  with  the  past  as 
much  as  with  the  present.    He  likes  to  repeat 


KAYMOND   POINCAKJfc  291 

the  famous  words  of  Comte,  **  The  Dead  count 
for  as  much  as  the  Living  "  ("  L'humanite  se 
compose  de  plus  de  morts  que  de  vivants  "). 
He  has  been  nourished  on  the  humanities,  and 
he  would  probably  contend  that,  even  so  far  as 
the  French  Revolution  is  concerned,  it  was  not 
merely  an  overthrowal  of  the  past,  but  a  return 
to  the  most  ancient  democratic  traditions  of 
humanity. 

But  the  dominant  note  of  Poincare's  Essays 
and  Speeches  is  the  patriotic  note.  He  is  a 
citizen  of  Lorraine,  and  Lorraine  inspires  her 
children  with  a  patriotism  more  intimate,  more 
anxious,  more  tender,  than  any  other  region  in 
France.  The  love  of  France  is  his  supreme  in- 
spiration. He  is,  no  doubt,  a  good  European, 
because  he  assumes  that  a  good  Frenchman  must 
necessarily  be  a  good  European,  because  French 
culture  is  bound  up  with  universal  human  culture. 
But  I  suspect  that  M.  Poincare  has  little  interest 
in  European  culture  as  distinct  from  French 
culture. 


This  cursory  analysis  of  the  characteristics 
underlying  M.  Poincare's  writings  will  enable  us 
to  some  extent  to  forecast  the  policy  which  the 


292      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

new  President  will  try  to  impress  upon  his 
Ministers. 

I  do  not  think  that  his  Home  Policy  will  be 
one  mainly  of  Social  Reform.  It  will  mainly  be 
a  policy  of  Republican  concentration  and  of 
resistance  to  lawlessness. 

Even  as  his  Home  Policy  will  be  mainly  a 
policy  of  resistance  to  the  party  of  disorder, 
M.  Poincare's  Foreign  Policy  will  be  mainly  a 
policy  of  resistance  to  the  encroachments  of 
Germany.  We  may  expect  a  firm  though  con- 
ciUatory  attitude  in  international  affairs,  and 
a  strict  adherence  of  France  to  the  Triple 
Entente.  And  this  vigorous  Foreign  Policy  will 
entail  increased  Naval  and  Military  expenditure. 
That  is  another  reason  why  his  Home  Policy 
cannot  be  one  of  Social  Reform.  Social  Re- 
forms cost  a  great  deal  of  money,  and  for  the 
next  seven  years  all  the  available  resources  of 
France  will  be  claimed  by  the  exigencies  of 
national  defence. 


THE   NEW  FEANCE 


THE   NEW  FRANCE  1 

Not  many  years  ago,  it  was  a  fashion  with  super- 
ficial journahsts  and  poUtical  phihstines  to 
speak  of  the  decadence  of  the  French  people. 
Those  were  the  days  when  our  attention  was 
perpetually  being  called  to  Sedan  and  Fashoda, 
to  the  crushing  defeats  and  humiliations  suffered 
in  war  and  diplomacy,  to  the  prevalence  of 
reUgious  strife  and  internal  dissensions,  to  the 
Panama  and  Dreyfus  scandals,  to  the  decrease 
of  the  birth-rate  and  the  increase  of  crime.  It 
was  a  foregone  conclusion  that  the  doom  of  the 
foremost  of  the  Latin  races  was  sealed,  and  that 
the  immediate  future  belonged  to  the  Teuton. 


I 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  immediate  future  gave 
the  lie  to  those  prophecies.     The  prophets  were 

1 1  have  included  this  Essay  on  the  French  Renascence,  written 
three  years  ago,  although  it  treats  of  the  same  subject  as  the 
more  elaborate  Introduction  to  the  volume.  But  even  though 
the  sentiments  and  spirit  of  the  arguments  are  the  same,  the 
Essays  were  written  under  entirely  different  circumstances  and 
from  an  entirely  different  point  of  view.  And  the  splendid  fact 
of  the  French  Renascence  can  bear  repeating  and  emphasizing. 

294 


THE   NEW  FRANCE  295 

entirely  misreading  the  phenomena  of  French 
life.  They  failed  to  see  that  it  is  a  good  sign, 
and  not  a  bad  sign,  when  a  whole  nation  is  con- 
vulsed when  there  is  one  miscarriage  of  justice, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Dreyfus  affair.  They  failed 
to  see  that  it  is  a  good  sign,  and  not  a  bad  sign, 
when  a  nation  is  so  truthful  that  she  must 
always  lay  bare  her  evils  for  all  the  world  to  see — 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Panama  scandal.  They 
failed  to  see  that  it  is  a  good  symptom,  and  not 
a  bad  symptom,  when  a  nation  is  so  passionately 
interested  in  religious  truth  as  to  be  ever  ready 
to  fight  for  it.  They  failed  to  see  that  even 
civil  strife  is  not  necessarily  a  symptom  of 
disease,  but  may,  on  the  contrary,  be  a  symptom 
of  health.  Only  those  nations  know  nothing  of 
civil  strife  who  always  submit  in  passive  and 
servile  obedience  to  despotism. 

And  therefore  what  the  prophets  mistook  for 
French  decadence  was  nothing  but  a  crisis  of 
growth,  antecedent  to  a  rejuvenescence  and  a 
renascence  of  the  French  people.  That  crisis 
of  growth  might  indeed  produce  a  temporary 
weakening,  as  every  such  crisis  does,  but  the 
French  people  did  emerge  from  that  weakening 
with  that  marvellous  recuperative  power  and 
with  that  mercurial  temperament  which  has 
characterized  them  through  history.    And,  the 


296      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

crisis  past,  they  once  more  appeared  in  the  van 
of  civilization,  they  once  more  astonished  the 
world  by  the  exuberance  of  their  vitality. 


II 

Considering  first  the  material  prosperity  of 
contemporary  France,  even  those  realists  who 
take  wealth  as  the  chief  criterion  of  national 
greatness  must  admit  that  in  the  abundance  of 
her  national  resources  France  is  at  least  the 
equal  of  any  other  Continental  nation.  There 
is  no  other  nation  which  possesses  so  much 
accumulated  capital.  There  is  little  pauperism 
in  the  big  cities,  and  outside  those  cities  there 
is  little  poverty.  Amongst  no  other  Continental 
people  is  wealth  more  evenly  distributed  than 
among  that  nation  of  peasant  proprietors. 
Paris  remains  one  of  the  two  or  three  money 
markets  of  the  world.  Most  of  the  great  enter- 
prises of  modern  times,  from  the  Suez  and 
Panama  Canals  to  the  Trans-Siberian  Railway, 
have  been  launched  with  the  assistance  of  French 
loans.  Even  Germany  has  again  and  again 
been  compelled  to  appeal  to  France  to  finance 
her  Imperial  schemes. 


THE  NEW  FRANCE  297 

in 

If  we  pass  from  the  consideration  of  the 
material  prosperity  of  France  to  that  of  her 
political  power,  we  find  that  here  also  she  has 
been  restored  to  a  front  place  in  the  councils  of 
Europe.  After  1870,  France  knew  a  few  years 
of  international  isolation  and  of  diplomatic 
impotence.  To-day  France  stands  conscious  of 
her  strength,  and  opposes  a  united  front  to  her 
enemies.  But  her  patriotism  has  ceased  to  be 
aggressive  ;  it  is  restrained  and  dignified.  She 
still  remains,  even  as  all  the  world  actually  does 
remain,  under  the  magic  spell  of  Napoleon's 
personality,  but  she  has  ceased  to  glorify  the 
pomp  and  circumstance  of  war.  And  her 
political  power  to-day  is  asserted  as  it  never  was 
before,  in  the  cause  of  peaceful  progress.  Eng- 
land has  understood  the  true  significance  of 
French  power,  and  it  is  because  she  has  under- 
stood it  that  she  has  entered  into  an  "  Entente 
Cordiale ""  with  her  neighbour.  English  states- 
manship realizes  that  France  is  the  key-stone  of 
Continental  Europe,  that  she  holds  the  balance 
of  power,  that  any  serious  blow  aimed  at  France 
would  be  indirectly  aimed  at  England  and  at 
European  civilization,  and  that  if  it  ever  came 
to  a  European  conflict,  the  decisive  battles  of 


298      THE   FRENCH   RENASCENCE 

England  would  have  to  be  fought,  not  against 
France,  as  in  the  past,  but  in  alliance  with  France 
and  on  French  battlefields.  ^ 


IV 

It  has  often  been  found  that  material  pros- 
perity and  political  power  deaden,  for  the  time 
being,  the  spiritual  activities  of  a  people.  This 
cannot  be  said  of  contemporary  France,  and  her 
spiritual  activities  reveal  no  less  the  vitality  of 
the  race  than  her  economic  activities. 

There  are  still  to  be  found  a  few  bigots  who 
are  fond  of  repeating  that  the  French  are  essen- 
tially a  non-religious  people,  a  frivolous,  light- 
hearted  people,  a  sceptical  people.  Fifty  years 
ago,  Elizabeth  Browning  gave  an  answer  to  that 
calumny  in  an  inspired  passage  of  "  Aurora 
Leigh '' :— 

"And  so  I  am  strong  to  love  this  noble  France, 
This  poet  of  the  nations,  who  dreams  on, 

....  Heroic  dreams! 
Sublime,  to  dream  so:  natural,  to  wake: 

May  God  save  France." 

In  those  noble  lines,  Mrs.  Browning  perceived 
the  deeper  truth,  and  read  the  French  character 

1  Written  in  1912. 


THE   NEW  FRANCE  299 

with  the  intuition  of  poetic  genius.  If  religion 
means  essentially  a  belief  in  a  Divine  Purpose  of 
humanity,  if  it  means  a  belief  in  lofty  ideals,  if 
it  means  the  fervid  enthusiasm  which  sacrifices 
everything  on  the  altar  of  those  ideals,  then 
there  are  no  more  religious  people  than  the 
French.  They  are  incurable  idealists.  From 
the  days  of  Joan  of  Arc  to  those  of  Rousseau, 
the  French  have  always  been  a  nation  of  apostles 
and  of  propagandists,  and  they  have  often 
shown  the  intolerance  and  fanaticism  of  the 
true  apostle.  Most  French  wars  have  been  wars 
of  rehgion ;  they  have  been  crusades  for  the 
triumph  of  a  principle.  Some  of  the  most 
decisive  political  and  spiritual  revolutions  in 
modern  history  have  their  source  on  French  soil. 
And  what  is  true  of  the  past  is  true  of  the  present. 
At  least  three  great  contemporary  constructive 
movements  are  French  in  origin :  that  momentous 
struggle  for  spiritual  freedom  within  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  which  goes  under  the  mis- 
leading name  of  "  Modernism "  ;  that  far- 
reaching  attempt  at  reconciling  science  and 
religion  which  is  miscalled  Pragmatism  ;  and 
that  portentous  political  philosophy  of  Syndical- 
ism which  is  rapidly  spreading  all  over  Europe. 
Loisy,  the  father  of  "  Modernism,"  Bergson,  the 
father  of  Pragmatism,  Georges  Sorel,  the  father 


300      THE   FKENCH   RENASCENCE 

of  Syndicalism,  are  all  Frenchmen,  and  around 
those  pioneers  are  gathered  a  host  of  seekers 
after  the  Truth. 


Even  the  most  severe  critics  of  French  culture 
have  always  admitted  the  supreme  quality  of  the 
French  intellect — its  lucidity,  its  versatility,  its 
ingenuity,  and,  above  all,  its  intellectual  honesty 
and  integrity.  It  was  therefore  to  be  expected 
that  a  French  revival  which  revealed  itself  so 
strikingly  in  the  province  of  politics  and  religion, 
in  an  outburst  of  patriotic  fervour  and  spiritual 
idealism,  should  equally  assert  itself  in  science, 
art,  and  literature. 

In  theoretical  science  the  French  have  always 
retained  their  prominence.  In  mathematics, 
the  purest  of  all  the  sciences,  they  can  still 
boast  of  their  traditional  supremacy.  I  need 
only  refer  to  such  names  as  Poincare.  In  the 
applied  sciences,  where  they  have  often  lagged 
behind  the  English,  they  have  been  the  pioneers 
in  the  two  new  developments  which  are  trans- 
forming contemporary  life  :  the  motor  car  and 
the  aeroplane.  Both  have  been  from  the  first 
pre-eminently  French  industries.  And  in  this 
connection  we  may  apply  to  the  French  people 
in  a  modified  form  a  famous  epigram   of   the 


THE   NEW   FRANCE  301 

poet  Heine  :  whereas  the  English  may  claim 
the  supremacy  of  the  sea,  whereas  the  Germans 
may  claim  the  supremacy  of  the  land — to  the 
French  belongs  the  conquest  of  the  air. 


VI 

But  it  is  especially  in  the  province  of  literature 
and  fine  art  that  the  French  Renascence  has 
achieved  its  most  signal  triumphs.  The  French 
school  of  painting  continues  to  draw  its  disciples 
from  all  parts  of  the  world.  In  sculpture,  Rodin 
is  a  giant  towering  above  his  contemporaries  in 
splendid  isolation.  In  literature  there  may  be 
greater  names  than  those  of  Anatole  France  and 
Maeterlinck,  than  Romain  Rolland  and  Rostand  ; 
but  certainly  there  are  no  names  which  are 
more  universal. 

VII 

I  have  just  mentioned  the  poet  of  "  Chante- 
cler."  Some  critics  have  wondered  at  the 
extraordinary  popularity  of  Rostand's  drama. 
But  the  reason  is  an  obvious  one.  "  Chantecler  " 
has  struck  the  European  imagination  because  it 
is  the  significant  symbol  of  the  Gallic  genius. 
"  Chantecler ''  is  the  bird  whose  clear  song 
("  le  chant  clair  ")  heralds  the  light  of  day  and 


302      THE   FRENCH   EENASCENCE 

the  joy  of  life.  Such  has  been  for  centuries  the 
mission  of  France  :  to  herald  the  dawn,  to  dis^ 
pel  darkness  and  reaction,  to  announce  the 
message  of  a  fuller  life,  a  life  more  joyous,  more 
bountiful,  more  beautiful. 

And  there  also  lies  the  real  explanation  of  the 
universality  of  the  French  language.  I  have 
travelled  in  every  country  of  Europe,  of  Nor- 
thern Africa,  and  of  the  Near  East.  Every- 
where outside  the  Germanic  countries  I  have 
found  French  spoken  and  read  in  preference 
to  any  other  language,  and  often  in  pref- 
erence to  the  mother-tongue.  And  the  French 
language  is  everywhere  read  and  spoken, 
not  because  it  is  more  beautiful  than  other 
languages.  Indeed,  I  believe  that  English  and 
German  are  at  least  as  beautiful  as,  and  are 
often  much  more  expressive  and  much  more 
impressive  than,  the  French  language.  The 
French  language  is  universal  because  the  French 
ideals  which  the  French  language  proclaims  are 
themselves  universal,  because  they  appeal  to 
the  whole  of  civilized  humanity,  because  they 
partake  of  the  eternal  verities. 


Printed  by  Hunt,  Barnabd  &  Co.,  litd.,  London  and  Aylesbury. 


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